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ClntHM^--^    (i  T-^Qu^r- 


THE  POETRY  OF 


ROBERT  BROWNING 


BY 


STOPFORD    A.    BROOKE,   M.A. 

AUTHOR    OF   "TENNYSON,   HIS  ART  AND  RELATION 
TO  MODERN   LIFE" 


NEW   YORK 

THOMAS   Y.   CROWELL  &   COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


LOAN  STACK 


Aid  a^^.AU>.  41/ OSS 33 


Copyright,  1902, 
By  THOMAS  Y.   CROWELL  &  CO. 

Published  September,  1902. 


CONTENTS 

I.  Browning  and  Tennyson    . 

II.  The  Treatment  of  Nature 

III.  The  Treatment  of  Nature 

IV.  Browning's  Theory  of  Human  Life 

Pauline  and  Paracelsus 
V.    The  Poet  of  Art 

VI.      SORDELLO 

VII.  Browning  and  Sordello    . 

VIII.  The  Dramas         .... 

IX.  Poems  of  the  Passion  of  Love 

X.  The  Passions  Other  than  Love 

XI.  Imaginative  Representations    . 

XII.  Imaginative  Representations: 
Renaissance      .... 

XIII.  Womanhood  in  Browning  . 

XIV.  Womanhood  in  Browning: 

The  Dramatic  Lyrics  and  Pompilia 

XV.     Balaustion 

XVI.    The  Ring  and  the  Book   . 

XVII.     Later  Poems 

XVIII.    The  Last  Poems  .... 

iii 


I 

57 
90 

115 

141 

177 
200 
219 
242 
264 
280 

301 
323 

344 
365 
391 

414 

431 


802 


CHAPTER   I 

BROWNING  AND    TENNYSON 

PARNASSUS,  Apollo's  mount,  has  two  peaks, 
and  on  these,  for  sixty  years,  from  1830  to 
1890,*  two  poets  sat,  till  their  right  to  these  lofty 
peaks  became  unchallenged.  Beneath  them,  during 
these  years,  on  the  lower  knolls  of  the  mount  of 
song,  many  new  poets  sang ;  with  diverse  instru- 
ments, on  various  subjects,  and  in  manifold  ways. 
They  had  their  listeners;  the  Muses  were  also 
their  visitants  ;  but  none  of  them  ventured  seriously 
to  dispute  the  royal  summits  where  Browning  and 
Tennyson  sat,  and  smiled  at  one  another  across  the 
vale  between. 

Both  began  together ;  and  the  impulses  which 
came  to  them  from  the  new  and  excited  world 
which  opened  its  fountains  in  and  about  1832 
continued  to  impel  them  till  the  close  of  their  lives. 
While  the  poetic  world  altered  around  them,  while 
two  generations  of  poets  made  new  schools  of 
poetry,  they  remained,  for  the  most  part,  unaffected 

*  I  state  it  roughly.  The  Poems  of  Two  Brothers  appeared  in 
1826,  Tennyson's  first  single  volume  in  1830,  his  second  in  1833, 
his  last  in  1889.  Browning's  first  poem  was  issued  in  1833,  his 
last  in  1890.  Paracelsus,  in  which  his  genius  clearly  disclosed 
itself,  was  published  in  1835,  while  Tennyson,  seven  years  later, 
proved  his  mastership  in  the  two  volumes  of  1842. 
B  I 


2  DROWNING 

by  these  schools.  There  is  nothing  of  Arnold  and 
Clough,  of  Swinburne,  Rossctti  or  Morris,  or  of 
any  of  the  others,  in  Browning  or  Tennyson. 
^  There  is  nothing  even  of  Mrs.  Browning  in 
■  Browning.  What  changes  took  place  in  them 
were  wrought,  first,  by  the  natural  growth  of  their 
own  character ;  secondly,  by  the  natural  develop- 
ment of  their  art-power ;  and  thirdly,  by  the  slow 
decaying  of  that  power.  They  were,  in  com- 
parison with  the  rest,  curiously  uninfluenced  by 
the  changes  of  the  world  around  them.  The 
main  themes,  with  which  they  began,  they  retained 
to  the  end.  Their  methods,  their  instruments,  their 
way  of  feeling  into  the  world  of  man  and  of  nature, 
their  relation  to  the  doctrines  of  God  and  of  Man, 
did  not,  though  on  all  these  matters  they  held 
diverse  views,  alter  with  the  alteration  of  the 
world.  But  this  is  more  true  of  Browning  than 
of  Tennyson.  The  political  and  social  events  of 
those  years  touched  Tennyson,  as  we  see  from 
Maud  and  the  Princess^  but  his  way  of  looking  at 
them  was  not  the  way  of  a  contemporary.  It 
might  have  been  predicted  from  his  previous  career 
and  work.  Then  the  new  movements  of  Science 
and  Criticism  which  disturbed  Clough  and  Arnold 
so  deeply,  also  troubled  Tennyson,  but  not  half  so 
seriously.  He  staggered  for  a  time  under  the 
attack  on  his  old  conceptions,  but  he  never  yielded 
to  it.  He  was  angry  with  himself  for  every  doubt 
that  beset  him,  and  angry  with  the  Science  and 
Criticism  which  disturbed  the  ancient  ideas  he  was 
determined  not  to  change.  Finally,  he  rested  where 
he  had  been  when  he  wrote  In  Mcnioriam,  nay 
more,  where  he  had  been  when  he  began  to  write. 


BROWNING  AND   TENNYSON  3 

There  were  no  such  intervals  in  Browning's 
thought.  One  could  scarcely  say  from  his  poetry, 
except  in  a  very  few  places,  that  he  was  aware  of 
the  social  changes  of  his  time,  or  of  the  scientific 
and  critical  movement  which,  while  he  lived,  so 
profoundly  modified  both  theology  and  religion.* 
AsolandOy  in  1890,  strikes  the  same  chords,  but  more 
feebly,  which  Paracelsus  struck  in  1835. 

But  though,  in  this  lofty  apartness  and  self- 
unity.  Browning  and  Tennyson  may  fairly  be  said 
to  be  at  one,  in  themselves  and  in  their  song 
they  were  different.  There  could  scarcely  be  two 
characters,  two  musics,  two  minds,  two  methods 
in  art,  two  imaginations,  more  distinct  and  con- 
trasted than  those  which  lodged  in  these  men  — 
and  the  object  of  this  introduction  is  to  bring  out 
this  contrast,  with  the  purpose  of  placing  in  a 
clearer  light  some  of  the  peculiar  elements  in  the 
poetry  of  Browning,  and  in  his  position  as  a  poet. 

I.  Their  public  fate  was  singularly  different.  In 
1842  Tennyson,  with  his  two  volumes  of  Collected 
Poems,  made  his  position.  The  Priiiccss^  in  1847, 
increased  his  reputation.     In   1850,  In  Memoriam 

*  A  Death  in  the  Desert  touches  on  the  doubts  which,  when  it 
was  written,  had  gathered  from  historical  criticism  round  the 
subject-matter  of  the  Gospels,  but  the  prophetic  answer  of  St. 
John  is  not  critical.  It  is  Browning's  personal  reply  to  the 
critics,  and  is  based  on  his  own  religious  philosophy.  The 
critical  part  of  the  argument  is  left  untouched,  and  the  answer  is 
given  from  the  poet's  plane.  It  is  the  same  when  in  the 
Parleyings  with  certain  People  Furini  is  made  to  embody  Browning's 
belief  in  a  personal  God  in  contradistinction  with  the  mere 
evolutionist.  He  does  not  argue  the  points.  He  places  one 
doctrine  over  against  the  other  and  bids  the  reader  choose. 
Moreover,  he  claims  his  view  as  his  own  alone.  He  seeks  to 
impose  it  on  no  one. 


4  BROWNING 

raised  him,  it  was  said,  above  all  the  poets  of  his 
time,  and  the  book  was  appreciated,  read,  and  loved 
by  the  greater  part  of  the  English-speaking  world. 
The  success  and  popular  fame  which  now  followed 
were  well  deserved  and  wisely  borne.  They  have 
endured  and  will  endure.  A  host  of  imitators, 
who  caught  his  music  and  his  manner,  filled  the 
groves  and  ledges  which  led  up  to  the  peak  on 
which  he  lived.  His  side  of  Parnassus  was 
thronged. 

It  was  quite  otherwise  with  his  brother-poet. 
Only  a  few  clear-eyed  persons  cared  to  read 
Paracelsus,  which  appeared  in  1835.  Strafford, 
Browning's  first  drama,  had  a  little  more  vogue ;  it 
was  acted  for  a  while.  When  Sordello,  that 
strange  child  of  genius,  was  born  in  1840,  those 
who  tried  to  read  its  first  pages  declared  they  were 
incomprehensible.  It  seems  that  critics  in  those 
days  had  either  less  intelligence  than  we  have,  or 
were  more  impatient  and  less  attentive,  for  not 
only  Sordcllo  but  even  In  Memoriain  was  said  to  be 
exceedingly  obscure. 

Then,  from  1841  to  1846,  Browning  published  at 
intervals  a  series  of  varied  poems  and  dramas,  under 
the  title  of  Bells  and  Pomegranates.  These,  one 
might  imagine,  would  have  grasped  the  heart  of 
any  public  which  had  a  care  for  poetry.  Among 
them  were  such  diverse  poems  as  Pippa  Passes  ; 
A  Blot  in  the  'Scutcheon ;  Saul ;  The  Pied  Piper 
of  Hamelin  ;  My  Last  Duchess ;  Waring.  I  only 
mention  a  few  (all  different  in  note,  subject  and 
manner  from  one  another),  in  order  to  mark 
the  variety  and  range  of  imaginative  power  dis- 
played in  this  wonderful  set  of  little  books.     The 


BROWNIN^G  AND    TENNYSON  5 

Bells  of  poetry's  music,  hung  side  by  side  with  the 
golden  Pomegranates  of  thought,  made  the  fringe 
of  the  robe  of  this  high  priest  of  song.  Rarely 
have  imagination  and  intellect,  ideal  faith  and  the 
sense  which  handles  daily  life,  passion  and 
quietude,  the  impulse  and  self-mastery  of  an 
artist,  the  joy  of  nature  and  the  fates  of  men, 
grave  tragedy  and  noble  grotesque,  been  mingled 
together  more  fully  —  bells  for  the  pleasure  and 
fruit  for  the  food  of  man. 

Yet,  on  the  whole,  they  fell  dead  on  the  pubhc. 
A  few,  however,  loved  them,  and  all  the  poems 
were  collected  in  1849.  ^^^  Memoriam  and  this 
Collected  Edition  of  Browning  issued  almost  to- 
gether;  but  with  how  different  a  fate  and  fame  we 
see  most  plainly  in  the  fact  that  Browning  can 
scarcely  be  said  to  have  had  any  imitators.  The 
groves  and  ledges  of  his  side  of  Apollo's  mountain 
were  empty,  save  for  a  few  enchanted  listeners, 
who  said :  **  This  is  our  music,  and  here  we  build 
our  tent." 

As  the  years  went  on,  these  readers  increased  in 
number,  but  even  when  the  volumes  entitled  Men 
and  Women  were  pubhshed  in  1855,  and  the 
Dramatis  Personce  in  1864,  his  followers  were  but 
a  little  company.  For  all  this  neglect  Browning 
cared  as  a  bird  cares  who  sings  for  the  love  of 
singing,  and  who  never  muses  in  himself  whether 
the  wood  is  full  or  not  of  listeners.  Being  always 
a  true  artist,  he  could  not  stop  versing  and 
playing ;  and  not  one  grain  of  villain  envy  touched 
his  happy  heart  when  he  looked  across  the  valley 
to  Tennyson.  He  loved  his  mistress  Art,  and  his 
love  made  him  always  joyful  in  creating. 


6  BROWNING 

At  last  his  time  came,  but  it  was  not  till  nearly 
twenty  years  after  the  Collected  Poems  of  1849 
that  TJie  Ring  a7id  tJic  Book  astonished  the  reading 
public  so  much  by  its  intellectual  tour  dc  foire  that 
it  was  felt  to  be  unwise  to  ignore  Browning  any 
longer.  His  past  work  was  now  discovered,  read 
and  praised.  It  was  not  great  success  or  world- 
wide fame  that  he  attained,  but  it  was  plea- 
sant to  him,  and  those  who  already  loved  his 
poems  rejoiced  with  him.  Before  he  died  he  was 
widely  read,  never  so  much  as  Tennyson,  but  far 
more  than  he  had  ever  expected.  It  had  become 
clear  to  all  the  world  that  he  sat  on  a  rival  height 
with  Tennyson,  above  the  rest  of  his  fellow-poets. 
Their  public  fate,  then,  was  very  different. 
Tennyson  had  fifty  years  of  recognition.  Browning 
barely  ten.  And  to  us  who  now  know  Browning 
this  seems  a  strange  thing.  Had  he  been  one  of 
the  smaller  men,  a  modern  speciaHst  like  Arnold 
or  Rossetti,  we  could  better  understand  it.  But 
Browning's  work  was  not  limited  to  any  particular 
or  temporary  phase  of  human  nature.  He  set 
himself  to  represent,  as  far  as  he  could,  all  types 
of  human  nature ;  and,  more  audacious  still,  types 
taken  from  many  diverse  ages,  nations,  and  climates. 
(  He  told  us  of  times  and  folk  as  far  apart  as  Caliban 
i  and  Cleon,  as  Karshish  and  Waring,  as  Balaustion 
and  Fifine,  as  St.  John  and  Bishop  Blougram. 
The  range  and  the  contrasts  of  his  subjects  are 
equally  great.  And  he  did  this  work  with  a 
searching  analysis,  a  humorous  keenness,  a  joyous 
boldness,  and  an  opulent  imagination  at  once 
penetrative  and  passionate.  When,  then,  we  realise 
this  as  we  realise  it  now,  we  are  the  more  astonished 


BROWNING  AND   TENNYSON  7 

that  appreciation  of  him  Hngered  so  long.  Why 
did  it  not  come  at  first,  and  why  did  it  come  in  the 
end  ? 

The  first  answer  to  that  question  is  a  general 
one.  During  the  years  between  i860  and  1890, 
and  especially  during  the  latter  half  of  these  years, 
science  and  criticism  were  predominant.  Their 
determination  to  penetrate  to  the  roots  of  things 
made  a  change  in  the  general  direction  of  thought 
and  feeling  on  the  main  subjects  of  life.  Analysis 
became  dearer  to  men  than  synthesis,  reasoning 
than  imagination.  Doubtful  questions  were  sub- 
mitted to  intellectual  decision  alone.  The  Under- 
standing, to  its  great  surprise,  was  employed  on 
the  investigation  of  the  emotions,  and  even  the 
artists  were  drawn  in  this  direction.  They,  too, 
began  to  dissect  the  human  heart.  Poets  and 
writers  of  fiction,  students  of  human  nature,  were 
keenly  interested,  not  so  much  in  our  thoughts 
and  feelings  as  in  exposing  how  and  why  we 
thought  or  felt  in  this  or  that  fashion.  In  such 
analysis  they  seemed  to  touch  the  primal  sources 
of  life.  They  desired  to  dig  about  the  tree  of 
humanity  and  to  describe  all  the  windings  of  its 
roots  and  fibres  —  not  much  caring  whether  they 
withered  the  tree  for  a  time — rather  than  to  describe 
and  sing  its  outward  beauty,  its  varied  foliage,  and 
its  ruddy  fruit.  And  this  hking  to  investigate  the 
hidden  inwardness  of  motives  — which  many  persons, 
weary  of  self-contemplation,  wisely  prefer  to  keep 
hidden  —  ran  through  the  practice  of  all  the  arts. 
They  became,  on  the  whole,  less  emotional,  more 
intellectual.  The  close  marriage  between  passion 
and  thought,  without  whose  cohabitation  no  work 


8  BROWNING 

of  genius  is  born  in  the  arts,  was  dissolved ;  and 
the  intellect  of  the  artist  often  worked  by  itself, 
and  his  emotion  by  itself.  Some  of  the  partheno- 
genetic  children  of  these  divorced  powers  were 
curious  products,  freaks,  even  monsters  of  litera- 
ture, in  which  the  dry,  cynical,  or  vivisecting  temper 
had  full  play,  or  the  naked,  lustful,  or  cruel  ex- 
posure of  the  emotions  in  ugly,  unnatural,  or 
morbid  forms  was  glorified.  They  made  an  im- 
pudent claim  to  the  name  of  Art,  but  they  were 
nothing  better  than  disagreeable  Science.  But 
this  was  an  extreme  deviation  of  the  tendency. 
The  main  line  it  took  was  not  so  detestable.  It 
was  towards  the  ruthless  analysis  of  life,  and  of 
the  soul  of  man ;  a  part,  in  fact,  of  the  general 
scientific  movement.  The  outward  forms  of  things 
charmed  writers  less  than  the  motives  which  led 
to  their  making.  The  description  of  the  tangled 
emotions  and  thoughts  of  the  inner  life,  before 
any  action  took  place,  was  more  pleasurable  to 
the  writer,  and  easier,  than  any  description  of  their 
final  result  in  act.  This  was  borne  to  a  weari- 
some extreme  in  fiction,  and  in  these  last  days  a 
comfortable  reaction  from  it  has  arisen.  In  poetry 
it  did  not  last  so  long.  Morris  carried  us  out  of  it. 
But  long  before  it  began,  long  before  its  entrance 
into  the  arts.  Browning,  who  on  another  side  of 
his  genius  delighted  in  the  representation  of  action, 
anticipated  in  poetry,  and  from  the  beginning  of 
his  career,  twenty,  even  thirty  years  before  it  be- 
came pronounced  in  literature,  this  tendency  to 
the  intellectual  analysis  of  human  nature.  When 
he  began  it,  no  one  cared  for  it;  and  Paracelsus, 
Sordello  and  the  soul-dissecting  poems  in  Bells  and 


BROWNING  AND   TENNYSON  9 

Pomegranates  fell  on   an  unheeding  world.     But 
Browning  did  not  heed  the  unheeding  of  the  world. 
He  had  the  courage  of  his  aims  in  art,  and  while 
he   frequently   shaped  in   his  verse   the  vigorous 
movement   of  life,    even  to   its   moments  of  fierce 
activity,  he  went  on  quietly,  amid  the  silence  of  the 
world,    to    paint   also   the    slowly  interwoven  and 
complex  pattern  of  the  inner  life  of   men.     And 
then,    when    the  tendency  of  which  I  speak  had 
collared  the  interest  of  society,  society,  with  great  and 
ludicrous  amazement,  found  him  out.     "  Here  is  a 
man,"  it  said,  "  who  has  been  doing  in  poetry  for  the 
last  thirty  years  the  very  thing  of  which  we  are  so 
fond,  and  who  is  doing  it  with  deUghtf ul  and  varied 
subtlety.     We  will  read  him  now."     So  Browning, 
anticipating  by  thirty  years  the  drift  of  the  world, 
was  not  read   at  first;   but,  afterward,  the  world 
having  reached  him,  he  became  a  favoured  poet. 
However,    fond    as    he    was    of    metaphysical 
analysis,  he   did  not   fall   into  the   extremes  into 
which    other    writers    carried    it.      Paracelsus    is, 
indeed,  entirely  concerned  with  the  inner  history  of 
a  soul,  but  Sordello  combines  with  a  similar  history 
a  tale  of  political  and  warlike  action  in  which  men 
and  women,  like  Salinguerra  and  Palma,  who  live 
in  outward  work   rather  than  in  inward  thought, 
are  described  ;  while  in  poems  like  Pippa  Passes 
and  some  of  the    Dramas,  emotion  and    thought, 
intimately  interwoven,  are  seen  blazing,  as  it  were, 
into  a  lightning   of  swift   deeds.      Nor  are  other 
poems  wanting,  in  which,  not   long  analysis,  but 
short   passion,  fiery  outbursts  of   thought,  taking 
immediate  form,  are  represented  with  astonishing 
intensity. 


lo  BROWNING 

2.  This  second  remarkable  power  of  his  touches 
the  transition  which  has  begun  to  carry  us,  in 
the  last  few  years,  from  the  subjective  to  the 
objective  in  art.  The  time  came,  and  quite  lately, 
when  art,  weary  of  intellectual  and  minute  investi- 
gation, turned  to  realise,  not  the  long  inward  life  of 
a  soul  with  all  its  motives  laid  bare,  but  sudden 
moments  of  human  passion,  swift  and  unoutlined 
impressions  on  the  senses,  the  moody  aspects  of 
things,  flared-out  concentrations  of  critical  hours  of 
thought  and  feeling  which  years  perhaps  of  action 
and  emotion  had  brought  to  the  point  of  eruption. 
Impressionism  was  born  in  painting,  poetry,  sculp- 
ture, and  music. 

It  was  curious  that,  when  we  sought  for  a  master 
who  had  done  this  in  the  art  of  poetry,  we  found 
that  Browning  —  who  had  in  long  poems  done  the 
very  opposite  of  impressionism  —  had  also,  in  a 
number  of  short  poems,  anticipated  impressionist 
art  by  nearly  forty  years.  Porphyria  s  Lover^ 
many  a  scene  in  SordellOy  My  Last  DiicJiess^  The 
Laboratory y  Home  Thotights fro7n  Abroad ^  are  only  a 
few  out  of  many.  It  is  pleasant  to  think  of  the 
ultimate  appearance  of  Waring,  flashed  out  for  a 
moment  on  the  sea,  only  to  disappear.  In  method, 
swiftness,  and  colour,  but  done  in  verse,  it  is  an  im- 
pressionist picture,  as  vivid  in  transient  scenery 
as  in  colour.  He  did  the  same  sort  of  work 
in  poems  of  nature,  of  human  life,  of  moments 
of  passion,  of  states  of  the  soul.  That  is  another 
reason  why  he  was  not  read  at  first,  and  why  he  is 
read  now.  He  was  impressionist  long  before 
Impressionism  arrived.  When  it  arrived  he  was 
found  out.     And  he  stood  alone,  for  Tennyson  is 


BROWNING  AND    TENNYSON  ii 

never  impressionist,  and  never  could  have  been. 
Neither  was  Swinburne  nor  Arnold,  Morris  nor 
Rossetti. 

3.  Again,  in  the  leisured  upper  ranges  of  thought 
and  emotion,  and  in  the  extraordinary  complexity  of 
human  life  which  arose,  first,  out  of  the  more  inti- 
mate admixture  of  all  classes  in  our  society ;  and 
secondly,  out  of  the  wider  and  more  varied  world- 
life  which  increased  means  of  travel  and  knowledge 
afforded  to  men,  Tennyson's  smooth,  melodious, 
simple  development  of  art-subjects  did  not  represent 
the  clashing  complexity  of  human  life,  whether 
inward  in  the  passions,  the  intellect,  or  the  soul,  or 
in  the  active  movement  of  the  world.  And  the 
other  poets  were  equally  incapable  of  representing 
this  complexity  of  which  the  world  became  clearly 
conscious.  Arnold  tried  to  express  its  beginnings, 
and  failed,  because  he  tried  to  explain  instead  of 
representing  them.  He  wrote  about  them ;  he  did 
not  write  them  down.  Nor  did  he  really  belong 
to  this  novel,  quick,  variegated,  involved  world 
which  was  so  pleased  with  its  own  excitement  and 
entanglement.  He  was  the  child  of  a'"world  which 
was  then  passing  away,  out  of  which  life  was 
fading,  which  was  tired  like  Obermann,  and  sought 
peace  in  reflective  solitudes.  Sometimes  he  felt,  as 
in  The  New  Age,  the  pleasure  of  the  coming  life  of 
the  world,  but  he  was  too  weary  to  share  in  it, 
and  he  claimed  quiet.  But  chiefly  he  saw  the 
disturbance,  the  unregulated  life ;  and,  unable  to 
reahse  that  it  was  the  trouble  and  wildness  of 
youth,  he  mistook  it  for  the  trouble  of  decay.  He 
painted  it  as  such.  But  it  was  really  young,  and 
out  of  it  broke  all  kinds  of  experiments  in  social, 


12  BROWNING 

religious,  philosophical,  and  political  thought,  such 
as  we  have  seen  and  read  of  for  the  last  thirty 
years.  Art  joined  in  the  experiments  of  this  youth- 
ful time.  It  opened  a  new  fountain  and  sent  forth 
from  it  another  stream,  to  echo  this  attempting, 
clanging,  and  complicated  society  ;  and  this  stream 
did  not  flow  like  a  full  river,  making  large  or 
sweet  melody,  but  like  a  mountain  torrent  thick 
with  rocks,  the  thunderous  whirlpools  of  whose 
surface  were  white  with  foam.  Changing  and 
sensational  scenery  haunted  its  lower  banks  where 
it  became  dangerously  navigable.  Strange  boats, 
filled  with  outlandish  figures,  who  played  on 
unknown  instruments,  and  sang  of  deeds  and 
passions  remote  from  common  life,  sailed  by  on  its 
stormy  waters.  Few  were  the  concords,  many  the 
discords,  and  some  of  the  discords  were  never 
resolved.  But  in  one  case  at  least  —  in  the  case  of 
Browning's  poetry,  and  in  very  many  cases  in  the 
art  of  music  —  out  of  the  discords  emerged  at  last 
a  full  melody  of  steady  thought  and  controlled 
emotion  as  (to  recapture  my  original  metaphor)  the 
rude,  interrupted  music  of  the  mountain  stream 
reaches  full  and  concordant  harmony  when  it  flows 
in  peace  through  the  meadows  of  the  valley. 

These  complex  and  intercleaving  conditions  of 
thought  and  passion  into  which  society  had  grown 
Browning  represented  from  almost  the  beginning 
of  his  work.  When  society  became  conscious  of 
them  —  there  it  found  him.  And,  amazed,  it  said, 
"  Here  is  a  man  who  forty  years  ago  lived  in  the 
midst  of  our  present  life  and  wrote  about  it." 
They  saw  the  wild,  loud  complexity  of  their  world 
expressed    in    his    verse ;    and    yet   were    dimly 


BROWNING   AND    TENNYSON  13 

conscious,  to  their  consolation,  that  he  was  aware 
of  a  central  peace  where  the  noise  was  quieted  and 
the  tangle  unravelled. 

For  Browning  not  only  represented  this  dis- 
cordant, varied  hurly-burly  of  life,  but  also,  out  of 
all  the  discords  which  he  described,  and  which, 
when  he  chose,  even  his  rhythms  and  word- 
arrangements  realised  in  sound,  he  drew  aconcordant 
melody  at  last,  and  gave  to  a  world,  troubled  with 
itself,  the  hope  of  a  great  concent  into  which  all 
the  discords  ran,  and  where  they  were  resolved. 
And  this  hope  for  the  individual  and  the  race  was 
one  of  the  deepest  elements  in  Browning's  religion. 
It  was  also  the  hope  of  Tennyson,  but  Tennyson 
was  often  uncertain  of  it,  and  bewailed  the  uncer- 
tainty. Browning  was  certain  of  his  hope,  and  for 
the  most  part  resolved  his  discords.  Even  when 
he  did  not  resolve  them,  he  firmly  believed  that 
they  would  be  resolved.  This,  his  essential 
difference  from  the  other  poets  of  the  last  fifty 
years,  marks  not  only  his  apartness  from  the  self- 
ignorance  of  English  society,  and  the  self-sceptical 
scepticism  which  arises  from  that  self-ignorance, 
but  also  how  steadily  assured  was  the  foundation 
of  his  spiritual  life.  In  the  midst  of  the  shifting 
storms  of  doubt  and  trouble,  of  mockery,  contradic- 
tion, and  assertion  on  religious  matters,  he  stood 
unremoved.  Whatever  men  may  think  of  his  faith 
and  his  certainties,  they  reveal  the  strength  of  his 
character,  the  enduring  courage  of  his  soul,  and 
the  inspiring  joyousness  that,  born  of  his  strength, 
characterised  him  to  the  last  poem  he  wrote. 
While  the  other  poets  were  tossing  on  the  sea  of 
unresolved  Question,  he  rested,  musing  and  creating, 


U  BROWNING 

on  a  green  island  whose  rocks  were  rooted  on  the 
ocean-bed,  and  wondered,  with  the  smiling  tolerance 
of  his  life-long  charity,  how  his  fellows  were  of  so 
little  faith,  and  why  the  sceptics  made  so  much 
noise.  He  would  have  reversed  the  Psalmist's  cry. 
He  would  have  said,  "  Thou  art  not  cast  down,  O 
my  soul ;  thou  art  not  disquieted  within  me. 
Thou  hast  hoped  in  God,  who  is  the  light  of  thy 
countenance,  and  thy  God." 

At  first  the  world,  enamoured  of  its  own  com- 
plex discords,  and  pleased,  like  boys  in  the  street, 
with  the  alarms  it  made,  only  cared  for  that  part 
of  Browning  which  represented  the  tangle  and  the 
clash,  and  ignored  his  final  melody.  But  of  late  it 
has  begun,  tired  of  the  restless  clatter  of  intellectual 
atoms,  to  desire  to  hear,  if  possible,  the  majestic 
harmonies  in  which  the  discords  are  resolved.  And 
at  this  point  many  at  present  and  many  more  in 
the  future  will  find  their  poetic  and  religious 
satisfaction  in  Browning,  At  the  very  end,  then, 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  in  a  movement  which 
had  only  just  begun,  men  said  to  themselves, 
"  Browning  felt  beforehand  what  we  are  beginning 
to  hope  for,  and  wrote  of  it  fifty,  even  sixty  years 
ago.  No  one  cared  then  for  him,  but  we  care 
now." 

Again,  though  he  thus  anticipated  the  movements 
of  the  world,  he  did  not,  like  the  other  poets, 
change  his  view  about  Nature,  Man,  and  God.  He 
conceived  that  view  when  he  was  young,  and  he 
did  not  alter  it.  Hence,  he  did  not  follow  or 
reflect  from  year  to  year  the  opinions  of  his  time  on 
these  great  matters.  When /^rt'r^<:^/i"//j' was  published 
in  1835  Browning  had  fully  thought  out,  and  in  that 


BROWNING  AND    TENNYSON  15 

poem  fully  expressed,  his  theory  of  God's  relation 
to  man,  and  of  man's  relation  to  the  universe 
around  him,  to  his  fellow-men,  and  to  the  world 
beyond.  It  was  a  theory  which  was  original,  if 
any  theory  can  be  so  called.  At  least,  its  form,  as 
he  expressed  \\,  was  clearly  original.  Roughly 
sketched  in  Pauline,  fully  rounded  in  Paracelsus,  it 
held  and  satisfied  his  mind  till  the  day  of  his  death. 
But  Tennyson  had  no  clear  theory  about  Man  or 
Nature  or  God  when  he  began,  nor  was  he 
afterwards,  save  perhaps  when  he  wrote  the  last 
stanzas  of  In  Memoriam,  a  fully  satisfied  citizen  of 
the  city  that  has  foundations.  He  believed  in  that 
city,  but  he  could  not  always  live  in  it.  He  grew 
into  this  or  that  opinion  about  the  relations  of  God 
and  man,  and  then  grew  out  of  it.  He  held 
now  this,  now  that,  view  of  Nature,  and  of  Man  in 
contact  with  Nature.  There  was  always  battle  in 
his  soul ;  although  he  won  his  battle  in  the  end,  he 
had  sixty  years  of  war.  Browning  was  at  peace, 
firm-fixed.  It  is  true  the  inward  struggle  of 
Tennyson  enabled  him  to  image  from  year  to  year 
his  own  time  better  than  Browning  did.  It  is  true 
this  struggle  enabled  him  to  have  great  variety  in 
his  art-work  when  it  was  engaged  with  the  emotions 
which  belong  to  doubt  and  faith ;  but  it  also  made 
him  unable  to  give  to  his  readers  that  sense  of 
things  which  cannot  be  shaken,  of  faith  in  God  and 
in  humanity  wholly  independent,  in  its  depths,  of 
storms  on  the  surface  of  this  mortal  life,  which  was 
one  of  Browning's  noblest  legacies  to  that  wavering, 
faithless,  pessimistic,  analysis-tormented  world 
through  which  we  have  fought  our  way,  and  out  of 
which  we  are  emerging. 


i6  BROWNING 

4.  The  danger  in  art,  or  for  an  artist,  of  so 
settled  a  theory  is  that  in  expression  it  tends  to 
monotony ;  and  sometimes,  when  we  find  ahiiost 
every  poem  of  Browning's  running  up  into  his 
theory,  we  arrive  at  the  borders  of  the  Land  of 
Weary-men.  But  he  seems  to  have  been  aware  of 
this  danger,  and  to  have  conquered  it.  He  meets 
it  by  the  immense  variety  of  the  subjects  he  chooses, 
and  of  the  scenery  in  which  he  places  them.  I 
do  not  think  he  ever  repeats  any  one  of  his 
examples,  though  he  always  repeats  his  theory. 
And  the  pleasant  result  is  that  we  can  either  ignore 
the  theory  if  we  like,  or  rejoice  over  its  universal 
application,  or,  beyond  it  altogether,  be  charmed 
and  excited  by  the  fresh  examples  alone.  And 
they  are  likely  to  charm,  at  least  by  variety,  for 
they  are  taken  from  all  ages  of  history  ;  from  as 
many  diverse  phases  of  human  act,  character,  and 
passion  as  there  are  poems  which  concern  them ; 
from  many  periods  of  the  arts  ;  from  most  of  the 
countries  of  Europe,  from  France,  Germany,  Spain, 
Italy  (rarely  from  England),  with  their  specialised 
types  of  race  and  of  landscape ;  and  from  almost 
every  class  of  educated  modern  society.  Moreover, 
he  had  a  guard  within  his  own  nature  against 
the  danger  of  this  monotony.  It  was  the  youthful 
freshness  with  which,  even  in  advanced  age,  he 
followed  his  rapid  impulses  to  art-creation.  No 
one  was  a  greater  child  than  he  in  the  quickness 
with  which  he  received  a  sudden  call  to  poetry 
from  passing  events  or  scenes,  and  in  the  eager- 
ness with  which  he  seized  them  as  subjects.  He 
took  the  big  subjects  now  and  then  which  the 
world  expects  to  be  taken,  and  treated  them  with 


BROWNING  AND    TENNYSON  17 

elaborate  thought  and  steadfast  feeling,  but  he 
was  more  often  like  the  girl  in  his  half -dramatic 
poem,  whom  the  transient  occurrences  and  sights 
of  the  day  touched  into  song.  He  picked  up  his 
subjects  as  a  man  culls  flowers  in  a  mountain  walk, 
moved  by  an  ever-recurring  joy  and  fancy  in  them 
—  a  book  on  a  stall,  a  bust  in  an  ItaHan  garden, 
a  face  seen  at  the  opera,  the  market  chatter  of 
a  Tuscan  town,  a  story  told  by  the  roadside  in 
Brittany,  a  picture  in  some  Accademia  —  so  that, 
though  the  ground-thought  might  incur  the  danger 
of  dulness  through  repetition,  the  joy  of  the  artist 
so  filled  the  illustration,  and  his  freshness  of  inven- 
tion was  so  delighted  v/ith  itself,  that  even  to  the 
reader  the  theory  seemed  like  a  new  star. 

In  this  way  he  kept  the  use  of  having  an 
unwavering  basis  of  thought  which  gave  unity  to 
his  sixty  years  of  work,  and  yet  avoided  the  peril 
of  monotony.  An  immense  diversity  animated 
his  unity,  filled  it  with  gaiety  and  brightness,  and 
secured  impulsiveness  of  fancy.  This  also  differ- 
entiates him  from  Tennyson,  who  often  wanted 
freshness ;  who  very  rarely  wrote  on  a  sudden 
impulse,  but  after  long  and  careful  thought;  to 
whose  seriousness  we  cannot  always  cHmb  with 
pleasure ;  who  played  so  little  with  the  world. 
These  defects  in  Tennyson  had  the  excellences 
which  belong  to  them  in  art,  just  as  these  excel- 
lences in  Browning  had,  in  art,  their  own  defects. 
We  should  be  grateful  for  the  excellences,  and  not 
trouble  ourselves  about  the  defects.  However, 
neither  the  excellences  nor  the  defects  concern  us 
in  the  present  discussion.  It  is  the  contrast  be- 
tween the  two  men  on  which  we  dwell. 


1 8  BROWNING 

5.  The  next  point  of  contrast,  which  will  further 
illustrate  why  Browning  was  not  read  of  old  but  is 
now  read,  has  to  do  with  historical  criticism.  There 
arose,  some  time  ago,  as  part  of  the  scientific  and 
critical  movement  of  the  last  forty  years,  a  desire 
to  know  and  record  accurately  the  early  life  of 
peoples,  pastoral,  agricultural,  and  in  towns,  and  the 
beginning  of  their  arts  and  knowledges ;  and  not 
only  their  origins,  but  the  whole  history  of  their 
development.  A  close,  critical  investigation  was 
made  of  the  origins  of  each  people ;  accurate 
knowledge,  derived  from  contemporary  documents, 
of  their  Hfe,  laws,  customs,  and  language  was 
attained  ;  the  facts  of  their  history  were  separated 
from  their  mythical  and  legendary  elements ;  the 
dress,  the  looks  of  men,  the  climate  of  the  time, 
the  physical  aspects  of  their  country  —  all  the 
skeleton  of  things  was  fitted  together,  bone  to 
bone.  And  for  a  good  while  this  merely  critical 
school  held  the  field.  It  did  admirable  and  neces- 
sary work. 

But  when  it  was  done,  art  claimed  its  place  in 
this  work.  The  desire  sprang  up  among  historians 
to  conceive  all  this  history  in  the  imagination,  to 
shape  vividly  its  scenery,  to  animate  and  individ- 
ualise its  men  and  women,  to  paint  the  life  of  the 
human  soul  in  it,  to  clothe  it  in  flesh  and  blood,  to 
make  its  feet  move  and  its  eyes  flash  —  but  to  do 
all  these  things  within  the  limits  of  the  accurate 
knowledge  which  historical  criticism  had  defined. 
"  Let  us  saturate  ourselves,"  said  the  historians, 
■*  with  clear  knowledge  of  the  needful  facts,  and 
then,  without  violation  of  our  knowledge,  imagine 
the  human  life,  the  landscape,  the  thinking  and 


BROWNING  AND   TENNYSON  19 

feeling  of  a  primaeval  man,  of  his  early  religion,  of 
his  passions  ;  of  Athens  when  the  Persian  came,  of 
Rome  when  the  Republic  was  passing  into  the 
Empire,  of  a  Provincial  in  Spain  or  Britain,  of  a 
German  town  in  the  woods  by  the  river.  Let  us 
see  in  imagination  as  well  as  in  knowledge  an 
English  settlement  on  the  Welsh  border,  an  Italian 
mediaeval  town  when  its  art  was  being  born,  a 
Jewish  village  when  Christ  wandered  into  its 
streets,  a  musician  or  a  painter's  life  at  a  time 
when  Greek  art  was  decaying,  or  when  a  new 
impulse  like  the  Renaissance  or  the  French  Revo- 
lution came  upon  the  world."  When  that  effort  of 
the  historians  had  estabHshed  itself,  and  we  have 
seen  it  from  blossoming  to  fruitage,  people  began 
to  wonder  that  no  poet  had  ever  tried  to  do  this 
kind  of  work.  It  seemed  eminently  fitted  for  a 
poet's  hand,  full  of  subjects  alluring  to  the  penetra- 
tive imagination.  It  needed,  of  course,  some 
scholarship,  for  it  demanded  accuracy  in  its  grasp 
of  the  main  ideas  of  the  time  to  be  represented  ;  but 
that  being  given,  immense  opportunities  remained 
for  pictures  of  human  life,  full  of  colour,  thought, 
and  passions;  for  subtle  and  brilliant  representa- 
tions of  the  eternal  desires  and  thinkings  of  human 
nature  as  they  were  governed  by  the  special 
circumstances  of  the  time  in  which  the  poem  was 
placed ;  and  for  the  concentration  into  a  single 
poem,  gathered  round  one  person,  of  the  ideas 
whose  new  arrival  formed  a  crisis  in  the  history  of 
art. 

Men  looked  for  this  in  Tennyson  and  did  not 
find  it.  His  Greek  and  mediaeval  poems  were 
modernised.    Their  imaginative  work  was  uncritical. 


20  BROWNING 

But  when  the  historians  and  the  critics  of  art  and 
of  rehgious  movements  happened  at  last  to  look 
into  Browning,  they  discovered,  to  their  delight 
and  wonder,  that  he  had  been  doing,  with  a 
curious  knowledge,  this  kind  of  work  for  many 
years.  He  had  anticipated  the  results  of  that 
movement  of  the  imagination  in  historical  work 
which  did  not  exist  when  he  began  to  write;  he 
had  worked  that  mine,  and  the  discovery  of  this 
made  another  host  of  people  readers  of  his  poetry. 

We  need  scarcely  give  examples  of  this.  Sordelh, 
in  1840  (long  before  the  effort  of  which  we  speak 
began),  was  such  a  poem  —  the  history  of  a  special- 
ised soul,  with  all  its  scenery  and  history  vividly 
mediseval.  Think  of  the  Spanish  Cloister,  The 
Laboratory,  A  Grammarian  s  Funeral,  the  Bishop 
orders  his  Tomb  at  Saint  Praxed's  CJiurch,  poems, 
each  of  which  paints  an  historical  period  or  a  vivid 
piece  of  its  life.  Think  of  The  Ring  and  the  Book, 
with  all  the  world  of  Rome  painted  to  the  life,  and 
all  the  soul  of  the  time ! 

The  same  kind  of  work  was  done  for  phases 
and  periods  of  the  arts  from  Greek  times  to  the 
Renaissance,  I  may  even  say,  from  the  Renaissance 
to  the  present  day.  Balaustion's  Prologue  con- 
centrates the  passage  of  dramatic  poetry  from 
Sophocles  to  Euripides.  Aristophanes'  Apology 
realises  the  wild  Hcence  in  which  art  and  freedom 
died  in  Athens  —  their  greatness  in  their  ruin  —  and 
the  passionate  sorrow  of  those  who  loved  what  had 
been  so  beautiful.  Clcon  takes  us  into  a  later  time 
when  men  had  ceased  to  be  original,  and  life  and 
art  had  become  darkened  by  the  pain  of  the  soul. 
We  pass  on  to  two  different  periods  of  the  Renais- 


BROWNING  AND   TENNYSON  21 

sance  in  Fra  Lippo  Lippi  and  in  Andira  del  Sa^'to, 
and  are  carried  further  through  the  centuries  of 
art  when  we  read  Abt  Vogler  and  A  Toccata  of 
Galiippi's.  Each  of  these  poems  is  a  concentrated, 
accurate  piece  of  art-history,  with  the  addition  to 
it  of  the  human  soul. 

Periods  and  phases  of  reHgious  history  are  equally 
realised.  Caliban  upon  Setebos  begins  the  record  — 
that  philosophic  savage  who  makes  his  God  out  of 
himself.  Then  follows  study  after  study,  from  A 
Death  in  the  Desert  to  Bishop  Bloiigrains  Apology. 
Some  carry  us  from  early  Christianity  through  the 
mediaeval  faith  ;  others  lead  us  through  the  Paganism 
of  the  Renaissance  and  strange  shows  of  Judaism 
to  Browning's  own  conception  of  religion  in  the 
present  day  contrasted  with  those  of  the  popular 
religion  in  Christinas-Day  and  Easter-Day. 

Never,  in  poetry,  was  the  desire  of  the  historical 
critic  for  accuracy  of  fact  and  portraiture,  combined 
with  vivid  presentation  of  life,  so  fully  satisfied.  No 
wonder  Browning  was  not  read  of  old ;  but  it  is 
no  wonder,  when  the  new  History  was  made,  when 
he  was  once  found  out,  that  he  passed  from  a  few 
to  a  multitude  of  readers. 

6.  Another  contrast  appears  at  the  very  begin- 
ning of  their  career.  Tennyson,  in  his  two  earliest 
books  in  1830  and  1833,  though  clearly  original  in 
some  poems,  had  clinging  round  his  singing  robes 
some  of  the  rags  of  the  past.  He  wrote  partly 
in  the  weak  and  sentimental  strain  of  the  poets 
between  1822  and  1832.  Browning,  on  the  con- 
trary, sprang  at  once  into  an  original  poetic  life 
of  his  own.  Pauline  was  unfinished,  irregular  in 
form,  harsh,  abrupt,  and    overloaded,    but  it  was 


22  BROWNING 

also  entirely  fresh  and  distinct.  The  influence  of 
Shelley  echoes  in  it,  but  much  more  in  admiration 
than  in  imitation  of  him.  The  matter,  the  spirit 
of  the  poem  were  his  own,  and  the  verse-movement 
was  his  own.  Had  Browning  been  an  imitator, 
the  first  thing  he  would  have  imitated  would  have 
been  the  sweet  and  rippling  movement  of  Shelley's 
melodies.  But  the  form  of  his  verse,  such  as  it 
was,  arose  directly  out  of  his  own  nature  and 
was  as  original  as  his  matter.  Tennyson  grew 
into  originality.  Browning  leaped  into  it ;  born,  not 
of  other  poets,  but  of  his  own  will.  He  begat 
himself.  It  had  been  better  for  his  art,  so  far  as 
technical  excellence  is  concerned,  had  he  studied 
and  imitated  at  first  the  previous  masters.  But 
he  did  not ;  and  his  dominant  individuality,  whole 
in  itself  and  creating  its  own  powers,  separates  him 
at  the  very  beginning  from  Tennyson. 

7.  Tennyson  became  fully  original,  but  he  always 
admitted,  and  sometimes  encouraged  in  himself, 
a  certain  vein  of  conventionality.  He  kept  the 
opinions  of  the  past  in  the  matter  of  caste.  He 
clung  to  certain  political  and  social  maxims,  and 
could  not  see  beyond  them.  He  sometimes  ex- 
pressed them  as  if  they  were  freshly  discovered 
truths  or  direct  emanations  from  the  Deity  of 
England.  He  belonged  to  a  certain  type  of 
English  society,  and  he  rarely  got  out  of  it  in  his 
poetry.  He  inhabited  a  certain  Park  of  morals, 
and  he  had  no  sympathy  with  any  self-ethical  life 
beyond  its  palings.  Whathadbeen,  whatwasproper 
and  recognised,  somewhat  enslaved  in  Tennyson 
that  distinctiveness  and  freedom  of  personality 
which   is   of  so  much  importance  in  poetry,  and 


BROWNING  AND   TENNYSON  23 

which,  had  it  had  more  Hberty  in  Tennyson,  would 
have  made  him  a  still  greater  poet  than  he  was. 

Browning,  on  the  other  hand — much  more  a 
person  in  society  than  Tennyson,  much  more  a 
man  of  the  world,  and  obeying  in  society  its 
social  conventions  more  than  Tennyson  —  never 
allowed  this  to  touch  his  poems.  As  the  artist,  he 
was  quite  free  from  the  opinions,  maxims,  and  class 
conventions  of  the  past  or  the  present.  His  poetry 
belongs  to  no  special  type  of  society,  to  no  special 
nationality,  to  no  separate  creed  or  church,  to  no 
settled  standard  of  social  morality.  What  his  own 
thought  and  emotion  urged  him  to  say,  he  said 
with  an  absolute  carelessness  of  what  the  world 
would  say.  And  in  this  freedom  he  preceded  and 
prophesied  the  reaction  of  the  last  years  of  the 
nineteenth  century  against  the  tyranny  of  maxims 
and  conventions  in  society,  in  morals,  and  in  religion. 
That  reaction  has  in  many  ways  been  carried 
beyond  the  proper  limits  of  what  is  just  and 
beautiful.  But  these  excesses  had  to  be,  and  the 
world  is  beginning  to  avoid  them.  What  remains 
is  the  blessing  of  life  set  free,  not  altogether  from 
the  use  of  conventions,  but  from  their  tyranny  and 
oppression,  and  lifted  to  a  higher  level,  where  the 
test  of  what  is  right  and  fitting  in  act,  and  just  in 
thought,  is  not  the  opinion  of  society,  but  that  Law 
of  Love  which  gives  us  full  liberty  to  develop  our 
own  nature  and  lead  our  own  life  in  the  way  we 
think  best  independent  of  all  conventions,  provided 
we  do  not  injure  the  life  of  others,  or  violate  any 
of  the  great  moral  and  spiritual  truths  by  obedience 
to  which  the  progress  of  mankind  is  promoted  and 
secured.    Into  that  high  and  free  region  of  thought 


24  BROWNING 

and  action  Browning  brought  us  long  ago.  Tenny- 
son did  not,  save  at  intervals  when  the  poet  over- 
rode the  man.  This  differentiates  the  men.  But" 
it  also  tells  us  why  Browning  was  not  read  fifty 
years  ago,  when  social  conventions  were  tyrannous 
and  respectability  a  despot,  and  why  he  has  been 
read  for  the  last  fifteen  years  and  is  read  now. 

8.  There  is  another  contrast  between  these  poets. 
It  is  quite  clear  that  Tennyson  was  a  distinctively 
English  poet  and  a  patriotic  poet ;  at  times  too  much 
of  a  patriot  to  judge  tolerantly,  or  to  write  fairly, 
about  other  countries.  He  had,  at  least,  a  touch  of 
national  contempts,  even  of  national  hatreds.  His 
position  towards  France  was  much  that  of  the  Brit- 
ish sailor  of  Nelson's  time.  His  position  towards 
Ireland  was  that  of  the  bishop,  who  has  been  a 
schoolmaster,  to  the  naughty  curate  who  has  a  will 
of  his  own.  His  position  towards  Scotland  was 
that  of  one  who  was  aware  that  it  had  a  geographical 
existence,  and  that  a  regiment  in  the  English  army 
which  had  a  genius  for  fighting  was  drawn  from  its 
Highlands.  He  condescends  to  write  a  poem  at 
Edinburgh,  but  then  Edinburgh  was  of  English 
origin  and  name.  Even  with  that  help  he  cannot 
be  patient  of  the  place.  The  poem  is  a  recollection 
of  an  Italian  journey,  and  he  forgets  in  memories 
of  the  South — though  surely  Edinburgh  might 
have  awakened  some  romantic  associations  — 

the  clouded  Forth, 
The  gloom  which  saddens  Heaven  and  Earth, 

The  bitter  East,  the  misty  summer 
And  gray  metropolis  of  the  North. 

Edinburgh  is  EngHsh  in  origin,  but  Tennyson  did 
not  feel  England  beyond  the  Border.     There  the 


BROWNING  AND   TENNYSON  25 

Celt  intruded,  and  he  looked  askance  upon  the  Celt. 
The  Celtic  spirit  smiled,  and  took  its  vengeance  on 
him  in  its  own  way.  It  imposed  on  him,  as  his 
chief  subject,  a  Celtic  tale  and  a  Celtic  hero ;  and 
though  he  did  his  best  to  de-celticise  the  story,  the 
vengeance  lasts,  for  the  more  he  did  this  the  more 
he  injured  his  work.  However,  being  always  a 
noble  artist,  he  made  a  good  fight  for  his  insularity, 
and  the  expression  of  it  harmonised  with  the  pride 
of  England  in  herself,  alike  with  that  which  is  just 
and  noble  in  it,  and  with  that  which  is  neither  the 
one  nor  the  other. 

Then,  too,  his  scenery  (with  some  exceptions,  and 
those  invented)  was  of  his  own  land,  and  chiefly  of 
the  places  where  he  lived.  It  was  quite  excellent, 
but  it  was  limited.  But,  within  the  limit  of  England, 
it  was  steeped  in  the  love  of  England ;  and  so 
sweet  and  full  is  this  love,  and  so  lovely  are  its 
results  in  song,  that  every  Englishman  has,  for  this 
reason  if  for  no  other,  a  deep  and  just  affection  for 
Tennyson.  Nevertheless,  in  that  point  also  his 
poetry  was  insular.  A  fault  in  the  poet,  not  in 
the  poetry.  Perhaps,  from  this  passionate  con- 
centration, the  poetry  was  all  the  lovelier. 

Again,  when  Tennyson  took  a  great  gest  of  war 
as  his  subject,  he  took  it  exclusively  from  the  his- 
tory of  his  own  land.  No  one  would  know  from 
his  writings  that  high  deeds  of  sacrifice  in  battle 
had  been  done  by  other  nations.  He  knew  of  them, 
but  he  did  not  care  to  write  about  them.  Nor  can 
we  trace  in  his  work  any  care  for  national  struggles 
or  national  life  beyond  this  island  —  except  in  a  few 
sonnets  and  short  pieces  concerning  Poland  and 
Montenegro —  an  isolation  of  interests  which  cannot 


26  BROWNING 

be  imputed  to  any  other  great  poet  of  the  first  part 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  excepting  Keats,  who 
had  no  British  or  foreign  interests.  Keats  had  no 
country  save  the  country  of  Beauty. 

At  all  these  points  Browning  differed  from 
Tennyson.  He  never  displayed  a  special  patriotism. 
On  the  contrary,  he  is  more  Italian  than  English, 
and  he  is  more  quick  to  see  and  sympathise  with 
the  national  characteristics  of  Spain  or  France  or 
Germany,  than  he  is  with  those  of  England.  No 
insular  feeling  prevented  him  from  being  just  to 
foreigners,  or  from  having  a  keen  pleasure  in 
writing  about  them.  Strafford  is  the  only  play  he 
wrote  on  an  English  subject,  and  it  is  rather  a 
study  of  a  character  which  might  find  its  place 
in  any  aristocracy  than  of  an  English  character. 
Even  Pym  and  Hampden  fail  to  be  truly  English, 
and  it  would  not  have  been  difficult  for  any  one  but 
Browning  to  take  their  eminent  English  elements 
out  of  them.  Paracelsus  and  Sordello  belong  to 
Germany  and  Italy,  and  there  are  scarcely  three 
poems  in  the  whole  of  the  seven  numbers  of  the 
Bells  and  Pornegranates  which  even  refer  to  Eng- 
land. Italy  is  there,  and  chiefly  Italy.  In  De  Gusti- 
bits  he  contrasts  himself  with  his  friend  who  loves 
England : 

Your  ghost  will  walk,  you  lover  of  trees, 

(If  our  loves  remain) 

In  an  English  lane 
By  a  cornfield-side  a-flutter  with  poppies. 

What  I  love  best  in  all  the  world 

Is  a  castle,  precipice-encurled, 

In  a  gash  of  the  wind-grieved  Apennine. 

"  Look  for  me,  old  fellow  of  mine,  if  I  get  out  of  the 


BROWNING  AND  TENNYSON  27 

grave,  in  a  seaside  house  in  South  Italy,"  and  he 
describes  the  place  and  folk  he  loves,  and  ends : 

Open  my  heart  and  you  will  see 
Graved  inside  of  it,  "  Italy." 
Such  lovers  old  are  I  and  she : 
So  it  always  was,  so  shall  ever  be ! 

It  is  a  poem  written  out  of  his  very  heart. 

And  then,  the  scenery  ?  It  is  not  of  our  country 
at  all.  It  is  of  many  lands,  but,  above  all,  it  is 
vividly  Italian.  There  is  no  more  minute  and 
subtly-felt  description  of  the  scenery  of  a  piece  of 
village  country  between  the  mountains  and  the  sea, 
with  all  its  Ufe,  than  in  the  poem  called  TJie 
Englishman  in  Italy.  The  very  title  is  an  outline 
of  Browning's  position  in  this  matter.  We  find 
this  English  poet  in  France,  in  Syria,  in  Greece, 
in  Spain,  but  not  in  England.  We  find  Rome, 
Florence,  Venice,  Mantua,  Verona,  and  forgotten 
towns  among  the  Apennines  painted  with  happy 
love  in  verse,  but  not  an  EngUsh  town  nor  an 
English  village.  The  flowers,  the  hills,  the  ways 
of  the  streams,  the  talk  of  the  woods,  the  doings  of 
the  sea  and  the  clouds  in  tempest  and  in  peace,  the 
aspects  of  the  sky  at  noon,  at  sunrise  and  sunset, 
are  all  foreign,  not  English.  The  one  little  poem 
which  is  of  English  landscape  is  written  by  him  in 
Italy  (in  a  momentary  weariness  with  his  daily 
adoration),  and  under  a  green  impulse.  Delightful 
as  it  is,  he  would  not  have  remained  faithful  to  it 
for  a  day.  Every  one  knows  it,  but  that  we  may 
realise  how  quick  he  was  to  remember  and  to  touch 
a  corner  of  early  Spring  in  England,  on  a  soft  and 
windy  day —  for  all  the  blossoms  are  scattered — I 
quote  it  here.     It  is  well  to  read  his  sole  contribu- 


28  BROWNING 

tion  (except  in  Pauline  and  a  few  scattered  illus- 
trations) to  the  scenery  of  his  own  country : 

Oh,  to  be  in  England 
Now  that  ApriFs  there, 
And  whoever  wakes  in  England 
Sees,  some  morning,  unaware. 
That  the  lowest  boughs  and  the  brushwood  sheaf 
Round  the  elm-tree  bole  are  in  tiny  leaf. 
While  the  chaffinch  sings  on  the  orchard  bough 
In  England  —  now! 

And  after  April,  when  May  follows, 

And  the  whitethroat  builds,  and  all  the  swallows! 

Hark !  where  my  blossomed  pear-tree  in  the  hedge 

Leans  to  the  field  and  scatters  on  the  clover 

Blossoms  and  dewdrops  —  at  the  bent  spray's  edge  — 

That's  the  wise  thrush  ;  he  sings  each  song  twice  over. 

Lest  you  should  think  he  never  could  recapture 

The  first  fine  careless  rapture ! 

And  though  the  fields  look  rough  with  hoary  dew, 

All  will  be  gay,  when  noontide  wakes  anew 

The  buttercups,  the  little  children's  dower ; 

—  Far  brighter  than  this  gaudy  melon-flower! 

So  it  runs ;  but  it  is  only  a  momentary  memory ; 
and  he  knew,  when  he  had  done  it,  and  to  his 
great  comfort,  that  he  was  far  away  from  England. 
But  when  Tennyson  writes  of  Italy — as,  for  instance, 
in  Mariana  in  tJie  Sonth  —  how  apart  he  is  !  How 
great  is  his  joy  when  he  gets  back  to  England  I 

Then,  again,  when  Browning  was  touched  by  the 
impulse  to  write  about  a  great  deed  in  war,  he  does 
not  choose,  like  Tennyson,  English  subjects.  The 
Cavalier  Times  have  no  importance  as  patriot  songs. 
They  are  mere  experiments.  The  poem.  How 
They  bi'oitght  the  Good  News  fi'om  GJient  to  Aix,  has 
twice  their  vigour.  His  most  intense  war-incident 
is  taken  from  the  history  of  the  French  wars  under 
Napoleon.    The  most  ringing  and  swiftest  poem  of 


BROWNING  AND  TENNYSON  29 

personal  dash  and  daring  —  and  at  sea,  as  if  lie  was 
tired  of  England's  mistress-ship  of  the  waves  —  a 
poem  one  may  set  side  by  side  with  the  fight  of 
The  Revenge^  is  Herve  Riel.  It  is  a  tale  of  a  Breton 
sailor  saving  the  French  fleet  from  the  English, 
with  the  sailor's  mockery  of  England  embedded 
in  it ;  and  Browning  sent  the  hundred  pounds 
he  got  for  it  to  the  French,  after  the  siege  of 
Paris. 

It  was  not  that  he  did  not  honour  his  country, 
but  that,  as  an  artist,  he  loved  more  the  foreign 
lands  ;  and  that  in  his  deepest  life  he  belonged  less 
to  England  than  to  the  world  of  man.  The  great 
deeds  of  England  did  not  prevent  him  from  feeling, 
with  as  much  keenness  as  Tennyson  felt  those  of 
England,  the  great  deeds  of  France  and  Italy. 
National  self-sacrifice  in  critical  hours,  splendid 
courage  in  love  and  war,  belonged,  he  thought,  to 
all  peoples.  Perhaps  he  felt,  with  Tennyson's 
insularity  dominating  his  ears,  that  it  was  as  well 
to  put  the  other  side.  I  think  he  might  have  done 
a  little  more  for  England.  There  is  only  one 
poem,  out  of  all  his  huge  production,  which 
recognises  the  great  deeds  of  our  Empire  in  war ; 
and  this  did  not  come  of  a  life-long  feeling,  such  as 
he  had  for  Italy,  but  from  a  sudden  impulse  which 
arose  in  him,  as  sailing  by,  he  saw  Trafalgar  and 
Gibraltar,  glorified  and  incarnadined  by  a  battle- 
sunset  : 

Nobly,  nobly   Cape   Saint   Vincent   to   the  North-west  died 

away ; 
Sunset  ran,  one  glorious  blood-red,  reeking  into  Cadiz  Bay ; 
Bluish  'mid  the  burning  water,  full  in  face  Trafalgar  lay ; 
In  the  dimmest  North-east  distance  dawned  Gibraltar  grand 

and  grey  ; 


30  BROWNING 

"  Here  and  here  did  England  help  me  :    how  can  I   help 

England  ? ''  —  say. 
Whoso  turns  as  I,  this  evening,  turn  to  God  to  praise  and 

pray. 
While  Jove's  planet  rises  yonder,  silent  over  Africa. 

It  is  a  little  thing,  and  when  it  leaves  the  sunset  it 
is  poor.  And  there  is  twice  the  fervour  of  its  sunset 
in  the  description  of  the  sunrise  at  Asolo  in  Pippa 
Passes. 

Again,  there  is  scarcely  a  trace  in  his  work  of 
any  vital  interest  in  the  changes  of  thought  and 
feeling  in  England  during  the  sixty  years  of  his 
life,  such  as  appear  everywhere  in  Tennyson.  No 
one  would  know  from  his  poetry  (at  least  until  the 
very  end  of  his  life,  when  he  wrote  Fra7icis  Fiirmi) 
that  the  science  of  life  and  its  origins  had  been 
revolutionised  in  the  midst  of  his  career,  or,  save 
in  A  Death  m  the  Desert^  that  the  whole  aspect  of 
theology  had  been  altered,  or  that  the  democratic 
movement  had  taken  so  many  new  forms.  He 
showed  to  these  English  struggles  neither  attraction 
nor  repulsion.  They  scarcely  existed  for  him  — 
transient  elements  of  the  world,  merely  national, 
not  universal.  Nor  did  the  literature  or  art  of  his 
own  country  engage  him  half  so  much  as  the 
literature  and  art  of  Italy.  He  loved  both.  Few 
were  better  acquainted  with  English  poetry,  or 
reverenced  it  more ;  but  he  loved  it,  not  because  it 
was  English,  but  of  that  world  of  imagination 
which  has  no  special  country.  He  cared  also  for 
EngHsh  art,  but  he  gave  all  his  personal  love  to 
the  art  of  Italy.  Nor  does  he  write,  as  Tennyson 
loved  to  do,  of  the  daily  life  of  the  English  farmer, 
squire,  miller,  and  sailor,  and  of    English  sweet- 


BROWNING   AND    TENNYSON  31 

hearting,  nor  of  the  English  park  and  brook  and 
village-green  and  their  indwellers,  but  of  the  work- 
girl  at  Asolo,  and  the  Spanish  monk  in  his  garden, 
and  the  Arab  riding  through  the  desert,  and  of  the 
Duchess  and  her  servant  flying  through  the  moun- 
tains of  Moldavia,  and  of  the  poor  painters  at 
Fano  and  Florence,  and  of  the  threadbare  poet  at 
Valladolid,  and  of  the  peasant-girl  who  fed  the 
Tuscan  outlaw,  and  of  the  poor  grammarian  who 
died  somewhere  in  Germany  (as  I  think  Browning 
meant  it),  and  of  the  Jews  at  Rome,  and  of  the 
girl  at  Pornic  with  the  gold  hair  and  the  peasant's 
hand,  and  of  a  hundred  others,  none  of  whom  are 
English.  All  his  common  life,  all  his  love-making, 
sorrow,  and  joy  among  the  poor,  are  outside  this 
country,  with  perhaps  two  exceptions  ;  and  neither 
of  these  has  the  English  note  which  sounds  so  soft 
and  clear  in  Tennyson.  This  is  curious  enough, 
and  it  is  probably  one  of  the  reasons  why  English 
people  for  a  long  time  would  have  so  little  to  do 
with  him.  All  the  same,  he  was  himself  woven  of 
England  even  more  than  of  Italy.  The  English 
elements  in  his  character  and  work  are  more  than 
the  Italian.  His  intellect  was  English,  and  had  the 
English  faults  as  well  as  the  English  excellences.  His 
optimism  was  English;  his  steadfast  fighting  quality, 
his  unyielding  energy,  his  directness,  his  desire  to 
get  to  the  root  of  things,  were  English.  His  religion 
was  the  excellent  English  compromise  or  rather 
balance  of  dogma,  practice,  and  spirituality  which 
laymen  make  for  their  own  life.  His  bold  sense  of 
personal  freedom  was  English.  His  constancy  to 
his  theories,  whether  of  faith  or  art,  was  English ; 
his  roughness  of  form  was  positively  early  Teutonic. 


32  BROWNING 

Then  his  wit,  his  esprit*  his  capacity  for  induing 
the  skin  and  the  soul  of  other  persons  at  remote 
times  of  history ;  his  amazing  inventiveness  and  the 
ease  of  it,  at  which  point  he  beats  Tennyson  out  of 
the  field ;  his  play,  so  highly  fantastical,  with  his 
subjects,  and  the  way  in  which  the  pleasure  he  took 
in  this  play  overmastered  his  literary  self-control ; 
his  fantastic  games  with  metre  and  with  rhyme, 
his  want  of  reverence  for  the  rules  of  his  art ; 
his  general  lawlessness,  belong  to  one  side,  but  to 
one  side  only,  of  the  Celtic  nature.  But  the 
ardour  of  the  man,  the  pathos  of  his  passion  and 
the  passion  of  his  pathos,  his  impulse  towards  the 
infinite  and  the  constant  rush  he  made  into  its 
indefinite  realms  ;  the  special  set  of  his  imagination 
towards  the  fulfilment  of  perfection  in  Love ;  his 
vision  of  Nature  as  in  colour,  rather  than  in 
light  and  shade  ;  his  love  of  beauty  and  the  kind  of 
beauty  that  he  loved ;  his  extraordinary  dehght  in 
all  kinds  of  art  as  the  passionate  shaping  of  part 
of  the  unapproachable  Beauty  —  these  were  all  old 
Italian. 


*  Much  has  been  said  of  the  humour  of  Browning.  But  it  is 
rather  wit  than  humour  which  we  perceive.  The  gentle  pathos 
which  belongs  to  humour,  the  pitiful  turn  of  the  humourist  upon 
himself,  his  smile  at  his  own  follies  and  those  of  mankind,  the 
half  light,  like  that  of  evening,  in  which  humour  dwells,  are 
wanting  in  Browning.  It  is  true  he  has  the  charity  of  humour, 
though  not  its  pathetic  power.  Pity  for  the  follies  and  sins  of 
men  does  fill  Browning's  poetry.  But,  all  the  same,  he  is  too 
keen,  too  brilliant,  too  fierce  at  times  for  a  humourist.  The  light 
in  which  we  see  the  foolish,  fantastic,  amusing,  or  contemptible 
things  of  life  is  too  bright  for  humour.  He  is  a  Wit  —  with 
charity  —  not  a  humourist.  As  to  Tennyson,  save  in  his  Lincoln- 
shire poems  and  Will  Waterproofs  Soliloquy,  he  was  strangely 
devoid  either  of  humour  or  of  v.it. 


BROWNING  AND    TENNYSON  33 

Then  I  do  not  know  whether  Browning  had 
any  Jewish  blood  in  his  body  by  descent,  but  he 
certainly  had  Jewish  elements  in  his  intellect,  spirit, 
and  character.  His  sense  of  an  ever-victorious 
Righteousness  at  the  centre  of  the  universe,  whom  one 
might  always  trust  and  be  untroubled,  was  Jewish, 
but  he  carried  it  forward  with  the  New  Testament 
and  made  the  Righteousness  identical  with  absolute 
Love.  Yet,  even  in  this,  the  Old  Testament  ele- 
ments were  more  plainly  seen  than  is  usual  among 
Christians.  The  appearance  of  Christ  as  all-con- 
quering love  in  Easter-Day  and  the  scenery  which 
surrounds  him  are  such  as  Ezekiel  might  have  con- 
ceived and  written.  Then  his  intellectual  subtlety, 
the  metaphysical  minuteness  of  his  arguments,  his 
fondness  for  parenthesis,  the  way  in  which  he  pursued 
the  absolute  while  he  loaded  it  with  a  host  of  relatives, 
and  conceived  the  universal  through  a  multitude  of 
particulars,  the  love  he  had  for  remote  and  un- 
expected analogies,  the  craft  with  which  his  intellect 
persuaded  him  that  he  could  insert  into  his  poems 
thoughts,  illustrations,  legends,  and  twisted  knots  of 
reasoning  which  a  fine  artistic  sense  would  have 
omitted,  were  all  as  Jewish  as  the  Talmud.  There 
was  also  a  Jewish  quality  in  his  natural  description, 
in  the  way  he  invented  diverse  phrases  to  express 
different  aspects  of  the  same  phenomenon,  a  thing 
for  which  the  Jews  were  famous  ;  and  in  the  way  in 
which  he  peopled  what  he  described  with  animal  life 
of  all  kinds,  another  remarkable  habit  of  the  Jewish 
poets.  Moreover,  his  pleasure  in  intense  colour,  in 
splashes  and  blots  of  scarlet  and  crimson  and  deep 
blue  and  glowing  green  ;  in  precious  stones  for  the 
sake    of    their    colour — sapphire,    ruby,    emerald. 


34  BROWNING 

chrysolite,  pearl,  onyx,  chalcedony  (he  does  not  care 
for  the  diamond);  in  the  flame  of  gold,  in  the 
crimson  of  blood,  is  Jewish.  So  also  is  his  love 
of  music,  of  music  especially  as  bringing  us  nearest 
to  what  is  ineffable  in  God,  of  music  with  human 
aspiration  in  its  heart  and  sounding  in  its  phrases. 
It  was  this  Jewish  element  in  Browning,  in  all  its 
many  forms,  which  caused  him  to  feel  with  and  to 
write  so  much  about  the  Jews  in  his  poetry.  The  two 
poems  in  wViich  he  most  fully  enshrines  his  view  of 
human  life,  as  it  maybe  in  the  thought  of  God  and 
as  it  ought  to  be  conceived  by  us,  are  both  in  the 
mouth  of  Jews,  of  Rabbi  Ben  Ezra  and  JocJianan 
Hakkadosh.  In  Filippo  Baldinncci  the  Jew  has  the 
best  of  the  battle ;  his  courtesy,  intelligence,  and 
physical  power  are  contrasted  with  the  coarseness, 
feeble  brains,  and  body  of  the  Christians.  In  Holy- 
Cross  Day,  the  Jew,  forced  to  listen  to  a  Christian 
sermon,  begins  with  coarse  and  angry  mockery,  but 
passes  into  solemn  thought  and  dignified  phrase. 
No  English  poet,  save  perhaps  Shakespeare,  whose 
exquisite  sympathy  could  not  leave  even  Shylock 
unpitied,  has  spoken  of  the  Jew  with  compassion, 
knowledge,  and  admiration,  till  Browning  wrote  of 
him.  The  Jew  lay  deep  in  Browning.  He  was  a 
complex  creature  ;  and  who  would  understand  or 
rather  feel  him  rightly,  must  be  able  to  feel  some- 
thing of  the  nature  of  all  these  races  in  himself. 
But  Tennyson  was  not  complex.  He  was  English 
and  only  English. 

But  to  return  from  this  digression.  Browning 
does  not  stand  alone  among  the  poets  in  the  apart- 
ness from  his  own  land  of  which  I  have  written. 
Byron  is  partly  with  him.    Where  Byron  differs  from 


BROWNING   AND    TENNYSON 


35 


him  is,  first,  in  this  —  that  Byron  had  no  poetic  love 
for  any  special  country  as  Browning  had  for  Italy ; 
and,  secondly,  that  his  country  was,  alas,  himself, 
until  at  the  end,  sick  of  his  self-patriotism,  he  gave 
himself  to  Greece.  Keats,  on  the  other  hand,  had  no 
country  except,  as  I  have  said,  the  country  of  Love- 
hness.  Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  and  Shelley  were 
not  exclusively  English.  Shelley  belonged  partly 
to  Italy,  but  chiefly  to  that  future  of  mankind  in 
which  separate  nationalities  and  divided  patriotisms 
are  absorbed.  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge,  in  their 
early  days,  were  patriots  of  humanity  ;  they  actually 
for  a  time  abjured  their  country.  Even  in  his  later 
days  Wordsworth's  sympathies  reach  far  beyond 
England.  But  none  of  these  were  so  distinctively 
English  as  Tennyson,  and  none  of  them  were  so 
outside  of  England  as  Browning.  Interesting  as  it  H 
is,  the  completejiess  of  this  isolation  from  England 
was  a  misfortune,  not  a  strength,  in  his  poetry.  f 

There  is  another  thing  to  say  in  this  connection. 
The  expansion  of  the  interests  of  the  EngHsh 
poets  beyond  England  was  due  in  Wordsworth, 
Coleridge,  Shelley,  and  partly  in  Byron,  to  the 
great  tidal-wave  of  feeling  for  man  as  man,  which, 
rising  long  before  the  French  Revolution,  was 
lifted  into  twice  its  height  and  dashed  on  the 
shore  of  the  world  with  overwhelming  volume,  by 
the  earthquake  in  France  of  1789.  Special  national 
sentiments  were  drowned  in  its  waters.  Patriotism 
was  the  duty  of  man,  not  to  any  one  nation  but 
to  the  whole  of  humanity,  conceived  of  as  the  only 
nation. 

In  1832  there  was  little  left  of  that  influence  in 
England  among  the  educated  classes,  and  Tennyson's 


36  BROWNING 

insular  patriotism  represented  their  feeling  for  many 
years,  and  partly  represents  it  now.  But  the  ideas 
of  the  Revolution  were  at  the  same  time  taking  a 
wiser  and  more  practical  form  among  the  English 
democracy  than  they  even  had  at  their  first  outburst 
in  France,  and  this  emerged,  on  one  side  of  it,  in 
the  idea  of  internationalism.  It  grew  among  the 
propertied  classes  from  the  greater  facilities  of  travel, 
from  the  wide  extension  of  commercial,  and  espe- 
cially of  literary,  intercommunication.  Literature, 
even  more  than  commerce,  diminishes  the  oppositions 
and  increases  the  amalgamation  of  nations.  On 
her  lofty  plane  nations  breathe  an  air  in  which  their 
quarrels  die.  The  same  idea  grew  up  of  itself  among 
the  working  classes,  not  only  in  England,  but  in 
Germany,  Italy,  France,  America.  They  began,  and 
have  continued,  to  lose  their  old  belief  in  distinct 
and  warring  nationalities.  To  denationalise  the 
nations  into  one  nation  only  —  the  nation  of  man- 
kind —  is  too  vast  an  idea  to  grow  quickly,  but  in 
all  classes,  and  perhaps  most  in  the  working  class, 
there  are  an  increasing  number  of  thinking  men 
who  say  to  the  varied  nations,  "We  are  all  one ;  our 
interests,  duties,  rights,  nature,  and  aims  are  one." 
And,  for  my  part,  I  believe  that  in  the  full  develop- 
ment of  that  conception  the  progress  of  mankind  is 
most  deeply  concerned,  and  will  be  best  secured. 

Now,  when  all  these  classes  in  England,  brought 
to  much  the  same  point  by  different  paths,  seek  for  a 
poetry  which  is  international  rather  than  national,  and 
which  recognises  no  special  country  as  its  own,  they 
do  not  find  it  in  Tennyson,  but  they  do  find  Browning 
writing,  and  quite  naturally,  as  if  he  belonged  to 
other  peoples  as  much  as  to  his  own,  even  more  than 


BROWNING   AND   TENNYSON  37 

to  his  own.  And  they  also  find  that  he  had  been 
doing  this  for  many  years  before  their  own  inter- 
national interests  had  been  awakened.  That,  then, 
differentiates  him  completely  from  Tennyson,  and 
is  another  reason  why  he  was  not  read  in  the  past 
but  is  read  in  the  present. 

9.  Again,  with  regard  to  politics  and  social 
questions,  Tennyson  made  us  know  what  his  general 
politics  were,  and  he  has  always  pleased  or  displeased 
men  by  his  political  position.  The  British  Constitution 
appears  throughout  his  work  seated  like  Zeus  on 
Olympus,  with  all  the  world  awaiting  its  nod.  Then, 
also,  social  problems  raise  their  storm-awakening 
heads  in  his  poetry  :  the  Woman's  Question  ;  War  ; 
Competition  ;  the  State  of  the  Poor  ;  Education  ;  a 
State  without  Religion  ;  the  Marriage  Question  ; 
where  Freedom  lies ;  and  others.  These  are  brought 
by  Tennyson,  though  tentatively,  into  the  palace  of 
poetry  and  given  rooms  in  it. 

At  both  these  points  Browning  differed  from 
Tennyson.  He  was  not  the  politician,  not  the 
sociologist,  only  the  poet.  No  trace  of  the  British 
Constitution  is  to  be  found  in  his  poetry  ;  no  one 
could  tell  from  it  that  he  had  any  social  views  or 
politics  at  all.  Sixty  years  in  close  contact  with 
this  country  and  its  movements,  and  not  a  line  about 
them ! 

He  records  the  politics  of  the  place  and  people 
of  whom  or  of  which  he  is  for  the  moment  writing, 
but  he  takes  no  side.  We  know  what  they  thought 
at  Rome  or  among  the  Druses  of  these  matters,  but 
we  do  not  know  what  Browning  thought.  The  art- 
representation,  the  Vorstelhmg  of  the  thing,  is  all ; 
the  personal  view  of  the  poet  is  nothing.     It  is  the 


38  BROWNING 

same  in  social  matters.  What  he  says  as  a  poet 
concerning  the  ideas  which  should  rule  the  temper 
of  the  soul  and  human  life  in  relation  to  our  fellow- 
men  may  be  applied  to  our  social  questions,  and 
usefully  ;  but  Browning  is  not  on  that  plane.  There 
are  no  poems  directly  applied  to  them.  This  means 
that  he  kept  himself  outside  of  the  realm  of  political 
and  social  discussions  and  in  the  realm  of  those 
high  emotions  and  ideas  out  of  which  imagination  in 
lonely  creation  draws  her  work  to  light.  With 
steady  purpose  he  refused  to  make  his  poetry  the 
servant  of  the  transient,  of  the  changing  elements 
\  of  the  world.  He  avoided  the  contemporary.  For 
this  high  reserve  we  and  the  future  of  art  will  owe 
him  gratitude. 

On  the  contrast  between  the  theology  we  find  in 
Tennyson  and  Browning,  and  on  the  contrast 
between  their  ethical  positions,  it  will  be  wiser 
not  to  speak  in  this  introduction.  These  two  con- 
trasts would  lead  me  too  far  afield,  and  they  have 
little  or  nothing  to  do  with  poetry.  Moreover, 
Browning's  theology  and  ethics,  as  they  are  called, 
have  been  discussed  at  wearying  length  for  the  last 
ten  years,  and  especially  by  persons  who  use  his 
poetry  to  illustrate  from  it  their  own  systems  of 
theology,  philosophy,  and  ethics. 

10.  I  will  pass,  therefore,  to  another  contrast  — 
the  contrast  between  them  as  Artists. 

A  great  number  of  persons  who  write  about  the 
poets  think,  when  they  have  said  the  sort  of  things 
I  have  been  saying,  that  they  have  said  either 
enough,  or  the  most  important  things.  The  things 
are,  indeed,  useful  to  say ;  they  enable  us  to  realise 
the  poet  and  his  character,  and  the  elements  of 


BROWNING  AND    TENNYSON  39 

which  his  poetry  is  made.  They  place  him  in  a 
clear  relation  to  his  time ;  they  distinguish  him 
from  other  poets,  and,  taken  all  together,  they 
throw  Hght  upon  his  work.  But  they  are  not  half 
enough,  nor  are  they  the  most  important.  They 
leave  out  the  essence  of  the  whole  matter ;  they 
leave  out  the  poetry.  They  illuminate  the  surface 
of  his  poetry,  but  they  do  not  penetrate  into  his 
interpretation,  by  means  of  his  special  art,  and 
under  the  influence  of  high  emotion,  of  the  beautiful 
and  sublime  Matter  of  thought  and  feeling  which 
arises  out  of  Nature  and  Human  Nature,  the  two 
great  subjects  of  song ;  which  Matter  the  poets  rep- 
resent in  a  form  so  noble  and  so  lovely  in  itself 
that,  when  it  is  received  into  a  heart  prepared  for 
it,  it  kindles  in  the  receiver  a  love  of  beauty  and 
sublimity  similar  to  that  which  the  poet  felt  before 
he  formed,  and  while  he  formed,  his  poem.  Such  a 
receiver,  reading  the  poem,  makes  the  poem,  with 
an  individual  difference,  "in  himself.  And  this 
is  the  main  thing;  the  eternal,  not  the  temporary 
thing. 

Almost  all  I  have  already  discussed  with  regard 
to  Tennyson  and  Browning  belongs  to  the  tem- 
porary ;  and  the  varying  judgments  which  their 
public  have  formed  of  them,  chiefly  based  on  their 
appeal  to  the  tendencies  of  the  time,  do  not  at  all 
predict  what  the  final  judgment  on  these  men  as 
poets  is  likely  to  be.  That  will  depend,  not  on 
feelings  which  belong  to  the  temporary  elements 
of  the  passing  day,  but  on  how  far  the  eternal  and 
unchanging  elements  of  art  appear  in  their  work. 
The  things  which  fitted  the  poetry  of  Tennyson  to 
the   years  between    1840  and   1870  have  already 


40  BROWNING 

passed  away  ;  the  things  which,  as  I  have  explained, 
fitted  the  poetry  of  Browning  to  the  tendencies 
of  the  years  after  1870  will  also  disappear,  and 
are  already  disappearing.  Indeed,  the  excessive 
transiency  of  nearly  all  the  interests  of  cultivated 
society  during  the  last  ten  years  is  that  in  them 
which  most  deeply  impresses  any  man  who  sits 
somewhat  apart  from  them.  And,  at  any  rate,  none 
of  these  merely  contemporary  elements,  which  often 
seem  to  men  the  most  important,  will  count  a 
hundred  years  hence  in  the  estimate  of  the  poetry 
either  of  Tennyson  or  Browning.  They  will  be  of 
historical  interest,  and  no  more.  Matters  in  their 
poetry,  now  the  subjects  of  warm  discussion  among 
their  critics,  will  be  laid  aside  as  materials  for 
judgment;  and  justly,  for  they  are  of  quite  imper- 
manent value. 

Whenever,  then,  we  try  to  judge  them  as  poets, 
we  must  do  our  best  to  discharge  these  temporary 
things,  and  consider  their  poetry  as  it  will  seem  a 
hundred  years  hence  to  men  who  will  think  seriously 
and  feel  sensitively,  even  passionately,  towards 
great  and  noble  Matter  of  imaginative  thought 
and  emotion  concerning  human  life  and  the  natural 
world,  and  towards  lovely  creation  of  such  matter 
into  Form.  Their  judgment  will  be  made  apart  from 
the  natural  prejudices  that  arise  from  contemporary 
movements.  They  will  not  be  wiser  in  their  judg- 
ment of  their  own  poets  than  we  are  about  ours, 
but  they  will  be  wiser  in  their  judgment  of  our  poets, 
because,  though  they  will  have  their  own  prejudices, 
theywill  not  have  ours.  Moreover,  the  long,  growing, 
and  incessantly  corrected  judgment  of  those  best 
fitted  to  feel  what  is  most  beautiful  in  shaping  and 


BROWNING  AND    TENNYSON  41 

most  enduring  in  thought  and  feeHng  penetrated 
and  made  infinite  by  imagination,  will,  by  that  time, 
have  separated  the  permanent  from  the  imperma- 
nent in  the  work  of  Browning  and  Tennyson. 

That  judgment  will  partly  depend  on  the  answers, 
slowly,  as  it  were  unconsciously,  given  by  the 
world  to  two  questions.  First,  how  far  does  their 
poetry  represent  truly  and  passionately  what  is 
natural  and  most  widely  felt  in  loving  human  nature, 
whether  terrible  or  joyful,  simple  or  complex,  tragic 
or  humorous  ?  Secondly,  how  far  is  the  repre- 
sentation beautiful  and  noble  in  form,  and  true  to 
the  laws  of  their  art.  That  poetry  which  is  nearest 
to  the  most  natural,  the  most  universal  elements  of 
human  life  when  they  are  suffused  with  love  —  in 
some  at  least  of  its  various  moods  —  and  at  the  same 
time  the  most  beautiful  in  form,  is  the  best.  It 
wins  most  affection  from  mankind,  for  it  is  about 
noble  matters  of  thought  which  the  greater  number 
of  men  and  women  desire  to  contemplate,  and 
about  noble  matters  of  passion  which  the  greater 
number  love  and  therefore  enjoy.  This  poetry 
lasts  from  generation  to  generation,  is  independent 
of  differences  made  by  chmate,  by  cast,  by 
nationality,  by  rehgion,  by  politics,  by  knowledge, 
custom,  tradition,  or  morals.  These  universal, 
natural  elements  of  human  nature  are,  in  all  their 
infinite  variety  and  striving,  beloved  by  men,  of 
undying  interest  in  action,  and  of  immortal  plea- 
sure in  thought.  The  nearer  a  poet  is  to  them, 
especially  to  what  is  loveable,  and  therefore  beauti- 
ful in  them,  the  greater  and  the  more  enduring 
is  his  work.  It  follows  that  this  greater  work 
will   also   be    simple,    that   is,    easy   to   feel    with 


42  BROWNING 

the  heart  though  it  may  be  difficult  to  grasp  by  the 
inteUigence.  Were  it  not  simple  in  feeling,  the 
general  answer  of  mankind  to  the  call  of  love,  in 
all  its  forms,  for  sympathy  would  be  unheard.  And 
if  it  be  simple  in  feehng,  it  does  not  much  matter 
if  the  deep  waters  of  its  thought  are  difficult  for  the 
understanding  to  fathom. 

It  would  be  ridiculous  to  dogmatise  on  a  matter 
which  can  only  be  fully  answered  a  century  hence, 
but  this  much  is  plain.  Of  these  two  poets,  taking 
into  consideration  the  whole  of  their  work,  Tennyson 
is  the  closest  to  human  nature  in  its  noble,  common, 
and  loving  forms,  as  Browning  is  the  closest  to 
what  is  complex,  subtle,  and  uncommon  in  human 
nature.  The  representation  both  of  the  simple  and 
of  the  complex  is  a  good  thing,  and  both  poets 
have  their  place  and  honour.  But  the  representation 
of  the  complex  is  plainly  the  more  limited  in  range 
of  influence,  and  appeals  to  a  special  class  of  minds 
rather  than  to  mankind  at  large.  There  are  some, 
indeed,  who  think  that  the  appeal  to  the  few,  to 
thinkers  alone  or  high-wrought  specialists  in  various 
forms  of  culture,  marks  out  the  greater  poet.  It  is 
the  tendency  of  literary  castes  to  think  that  special- 
ised work  is  the  greatest.  "  This  man,"  they  say, 
"  is  our  poet,  not  the  mob's.  He  stands  apart,  and 
his  apartness  marks  his  greatness."  These  are 
amusing  persons,  who  practically  say,  **  We  alone 
understand  him,  therefore  he  is  great." 

Yet  a  phrase  like  "  apartness  makes  greatness," 
when  justly  appHed  to  a  poet,  marks,  not  his 
superiority  of  rank,  but  his  inferiority.  It  relegates 
him  at  once  to  a  lower  place.  The  greatest  poets 
are  loved  by  all,  and  understood  by  all  who  think 


BROWNIN'G  AND    TEJSTN'YSON'  43 

and  feel  naturally.  Homer  was  loved  by  Pericles 
and  by  the  sausage-seller.  Vergil  was  read  with 
joy  by  Maecenas  and  Augustus,  and  by  the  vine- 
dressers of  Mantua.  Dante  drew  after  him  the 
greatest  minds  in  Italy,  and  yet  is  sung  to-day  by 
the  shepherds  and  peasants  of  the  hill-villages  of 
Tuscany.  Shakespeare  pleases  the  most  selected 
spirits  of  the  world  and  the  galleries  of  the  strolling 
theatres. 

And  though  Tennyson  and  Browning  are  far 
below  these  mightier  poets,  yet  when  we  apply  to 
them  this  rule,  drawn  from  what  we  know  to 
be  true  of  the  greatest,  Tennyson  answers  its  de- 
mand more  closely  than  Browning.  The  highest 
work  which  poetry  can  do  is  to  glorify  what  is 
most  natural  and  simple  in  the  whole  of  loving 
human  nature,  and  to  show  the  excelling  beauty, 
not  so  much  of  the  stranger  and  wilder  doings  of 
the  natural  world,  but  of  its  everyday  doings  and 
their  common  changes.  In  doing  these  two  things 
with  simplicity,  passion,  and  beauty  is  the  finest 
work  of  the  arts,  the  eternal  youth,  the  illimitable 
material  of  poetry,  and  it  will  endure  while 
humanity  endures  in  this  world,  and  in  that  which 
is  to  come.  Among  all  our  cultivated  love  of  the 
uncommon,  the  remote,  the  subtle,  the  involved,  the 
metaphysical,  and  the  terrible  —  the  representation 
of  which  things  has  its  due  place,  even  its 
necessity  —  it  is  well  to  think  of  that  quiet  truth, 
and  to  keep  it  as  a  first  principle  in  the  judgment 
of  the  arts.  Indeed,  the  recovery  of  the  natural, 
simple,  and  universal  ways  of  acting  and  feeling  in 
men  and  women  who  love  as  the  finest  subjects  of 
the  arts  has  always  regenerated  them  whenever,  in 


44  BROWNING 

pursuit  of  the  unnatural,  the  complicated,  the 
analytic,  and  the  sensational,  they  have  fallen  into 
decay. 

Browning  did  not  like  this  view,  being  conscious 
that  his  poetry  did  not  answer  its  demand.  Not 
only  in  early  but  also  in  later  poems,  he  pictured 
his  critics  stating  it,  and  his  picture  is  scornful 
enough.  There  is  an  entertaining  sketch  of  Naddo, 
the  Philistine  critic,  in  the  second  book  of  Sordello  ; 
and  the  view  I  speak  of  is  expressed  by  him  among 
a  huddle  of  criticisms  — 

"  Would  you  have  your  songs  endure  ? 
Build  on  the  human  heart  !  —  why,  to  be  sure  — 
Yours  is  one  sort  of  heart  —     But  I  mean  theirs, 
Ours,  everyone's,  the  healthy  heart  one  cares 
To  build  on  !  Central  peace,  mother  of  strength, 
That's  father  of  .  .  .   ." 

This  is  good  fooling,  and  Naddo  is  an  ass. 
Nevertheless,  though  Naddo  makes  nonsense  of  the 
truth,  he  was  right  in  the  main,  and  Browning  as 
well  as  Sordello  suffered  when  they  forgot  or  ignored 
that  truth.  And,  of  course.  Browning  did  not 
forget  or  ignore  it  in  more  than  half  his  work. 
Even  in  Sordello  he  tells  us  how  he  gave  himself 
up  to  recording  with  pity  and  love  the  doings  of 
the  universal  soul.  He  strove  to  paint  the  whole. 
It  was  a  bold  ambition.  Few  have  fulfilled  it  so 
well.  None,  since  Shakespeare,  have  had  a  wider 
range.  His  portraiture  of  life  was  so  much  more 
varied  than  that  of  Tennyson,  so  much  more 
extensive  and  detailed,  that  on  this  side  he  excels 
Tennyson  ;  but  such  portraiture  is  not  necessarily 
poetic,  and  when  it  is  fond  of  the  complex,  it  is 
always    in    danger    of    tending    to  prose.      And 


BROWNING   AND    TENNYSON  45 

Browning,  picturing  human  life,  deviated  too  much 
into  the  deUneationof  its  more  obscure  and  complex 
forms.  It  was  in  his  nature  to  do  and  love  this 
kind  of  work;  and  indeed  it  has  to  be  done,  if 
human  life  is  to  be  painted  fully.  Only,  it  is  not 
to  be  done  too  much,  if  one  desires  to  be  always 
the  poet.  For  the  representation  of  the  complex 
and  obscure  is  chiefly  done  by  the  analysing  under- 
standing, and  its  work  and  pleasure  in  it  lures  the 
poet  away  from  art.  He  loses  the  poetic  turn  of 
the  thing  of  which  he  writes,  and  what  he  produces 
is  not  better  than  rhythmical  prose.  Again  and 
again  Browning  fell  into  that  misfortune  ;  and  it  is 
a  strange  problem  how  a  man,  who  was  in  one  part 
of  his  nature  a  great  poet,  could,  under  the  sway  of 
another,  cease  to  be  a  poet.  At  this  point  his  in- 
feriority to  Tennyson  as  a  poet  is  plain.  Tennyson 
scarcely  ever  wrote  a  line  which  was  not  unmistak- 
ably poetry,  while  Browning  could  write  pages 
which  were  unmistakably  not  poetry. 

I  do  not  mean,  in  saying  all  this,  that  Browning 
did  not  appeal  to  that  which  is  deepest  and  uni- 
versal in  Nature  and  human  nature,  but  only  that 
he  did  not  appeal  to  it  as  much  as  Tennyson. 
Browning  is  often  simple,  lovely,  and  universal. 
And  when  he  speaks  out  of  that  emotional 
imagination  wherein  is  the  hiding  of  a  poet's 
power,  and  which  is  the  legitimate  sovereign  of 
his  intellectual  work,  he  will  win  and  keep  the 
delight  and  love  of  the  centuries  to  come.  By 
work  of  this  type  he  will  be  finally  judged  and  finally 
endure ;  and,  even  now,  every  one  who  loves  great 
poetry  knows  what  these  master-poems  are.  As  to 
the  others,  the  merely  subtle,  analytic  poems  in 


46  BROWNING 

which  intellect,  not  imagination,  is  supreme,  espe- 
cially those  into  which  he  drifted  in  his  later  life 
when  the  ardour  of  his  poetic  youth  glowed  less 
warmly  —  they  will  always  appeal  to  a  certain  class 
of  persons  who  would  like  to  persuade  themselves 
that  they  like  poetry  but  to  whom  its  book  is 
sealed;  and  who,  in  finding  out  what  Browning 
means,  imagine  to  their  great  surprise  that  they 
find  out  that  they  care  for  poetry.  What  they 
really  care  for  is  their  own  cleverness  in  discover- 
ing riddles,  and  they  are  as  far  away  from  poetry 
as  Sirius  is  from  the  Sun. 

There  are,  however,  many  true  lovers  of  poetry 
who  are  enthusiastic  about  these  poems.  And 
parts  of  them  deserve  this  enthusiasm,  for  they 
have  been  conceived  and  made  in  a  wild  borderland 
between  analysis  and  imagination.  They  occupy  a 
place  apart,  a  backwater  in  the  noble  stream  of 
EngHsh  poetry,  filled  with  strange  plants  ;  and  the 
final  judgment  of  Browning's  rank  as  an  artist  will 
not  depend  on  them  but  on  the  earlier  poems, 
which,  being  more  *'  simple,  sensuous,  and  passion- 
ate," are  nearer  to  the  common  love  and  life  of 
man.  When,  then,  we  apply  this  test,  the  difference 
of  rank  between  him  and  Tennyson  is  not  great, 
but  it  is  plain.  Yet  comparison,  on  this  point,  is 
difficult.  Both  drew  mankind.  Tennyson  is  closer 
to  that  which  is  most  universal  in  the  human  heart. 
Browning  to  the  vast  variety  within  it ;  and  men  in 
the  future  will  find  their  poetic  wants  best  satisfied 
by  reading  the  work  of  both  these  poets.  Let  us 
say  then  that  in  this  matter  they  are  equal.  Each 
has  done  a  different  part  of  that  portraiture  of  human 
nature  which  is  the  chief  work  of  a  poet. 


BROWNING   AND    TENNYSON  47 

But  this  is  not  the  only  test  we  may  apply  to 
these  men  as  poets.  The  second  question  which 
tries  the  endurance  and  greatness  of  poetic  work 
is  this  :  "  How  far  is  any  poet's  representation  of 
what  is  true  and  loving  in  itself  lovely  ?  "  Their 
stuff  may  be  equally  good.  Is  their  form  equally 
good  }  Is  it  as  beautiful  as  an  artist,  whose  first 
duty  is  to  be  true  to  beauty  as  the  shape  of  love 
and  truth,  ought  to  make  it .?  The  judgment  of  the 
future  will  also  be  formed  on  that  ground,  and 
inevitably. 

What  we   call  form   in  poetry  may  be  said  to 
consist  of,  or  to  depend  on,  three  things:  (i)  on 
a  noble  style;   (2)  on  a  harmonious  composition, 
varied  but  at  unity;  (3)  on  a  clear,  sweet  melody  of 
lawful   movement  in  verse.     These  are  not  every- 
thing in  poetry,  but  they  are  the  half  of  its  whole. 
The  other  half  is  that  the  ^'matter  "  —  that  is,  the 
deep  substance  of  amalgamated  Thought  and  Emo- 
tion—should  be  great,  vital  and  fair.  But  both  halves 
are  necessary,  and  when  the  half  which  regards  form 
is  weak  or  unbeautiful,  the  judgment  of  the  future 
drops  the  poems  which  are  faulty  in  form  out  of 
memory,  just  as  it  drops  out  of  its  affections  poems 
which  are  excellent  in  form,  but  of  ignoble,  unim- 
passioned,  feeble,  or  thoughtless  matter.  There  was, 
for  example,  a  whole  set  of  poets  towards  the  end 
of    the    Elizabethan   period  who    were   close  and 
weighty  thinkers,  whose  poetry  is  full  of  intellec- 
tual surprises  and  difficulties,  who  were  capable  of 
subtlety  of  expression  and  even  of  lovely  turns  and 
phantasies  of  feehng;    whom  students  read  to-day, 
but  whom  the  poetical  world  does  not  read  at  all. 
And  the  reason  is  that  their  style,  their  melody,  and 


48  BROWNING 

their  composition  do  not  match  in  excellence  their 
matter.  Their  stuff  is  good,  their  form  is  bad. 
The  judgment  of  the  future  gives  them  no  high 
rank.  They  do  not  answer  well  to  the  test  of 
which  I  speak. 

I  do  not  mean  to  apply  that  analogy  altogether, 
only  partly,  to  Browning.  He  rises  far  above 
these  poets  in  style,  composition,  and  melody,  but 
he  skirts  their  faults.  And  if  we  are  asked  to  com- 
pare him  to  Tennyson,  he  is  inferior  to  Tennyson 
at  all  these  points  of  Form. 

I .  His  composition  was  rarely  sufficiently  careful. 
It  was  broken  up,  overcrowded;  minor  objects  of 
thought  or  feeling  are  made  too  remarkable  for 
the  whole ;  there  is  far  too  little  of  poetical  per- 
spective; the  variety  of  the  poem  does  not  always 
grow  out  of  the  subject  itself,  but  out  of  the 
external  play  of  Browning's  mind  upon  things 
remotely  connected  with  the  subject ;  too  many  side- 
issues  are  introduced;  everything  he  imagined  is 
cast  upon  the  canvas,  too  little  is  laid  aside,  so  that 
the  poems  run  to  a  length  which  weakens  instead 
of  strengthens  the  main  impression.  A  number 
of  the  poems  have,  that  is,  the  faults  of  a  composer 
whose  fancy  runs  away  with  him,  who  does  not 
ride  it  as  a  master;  and  in  whom  therefore,  for  a 
time,  imagination  has  gone  to  sleep.  Moreover, 
only  too  often,  they  have  those  faults  of  composition 
which  naturally  belong  to  a  poet  when  he  writes 
as  if  intellect  rather  than  passion  were  the  ultimate 
umpire  of  the  work  of  his  art.  Of  course,  there 
are  many  exceptions;  and  the  study  of  those 
exceptions,  as  exceptions,  would  make  an  inter- 
esting  essay.      On    the  other    hand,  Tennyson's 


BROWNING  AND   TENNYSON  49 

composition  was  for  the  most  part  excellent,  and 
always  careful. 

2.    Then  as  to  style.     Browning  had  a  style  of 
his  own,  wholly  devoid  of  imitation,  perfectly  indi- 
vidual,  and  this  is  one  of   the  marks  of   a   good 
artist.     It  was  the  outcome  of  his  poetic  character 
and  represented  it.     At  this  point  his  style  is  more 
mterestmg  than  Tennyson's.    Tennyson's  style  was 
often  too  much  worked,  too  consciously  subjected 
to  the  rules  of  his  art,  too  worn  down  to  smoothness 
of  texture.     Moreover,  the  natural  surprises  of  an 
unchartered  individuality  do  not  sufficiently  appear 
m  it  (Tennyson  repressed  the  fantastic),  though  the 
whole  weight  of  his  character  does  magnificently 
appear.     But  if  Tennyson  was  too  conscious  of  his 
style  — a  great  misfortune  especially  in  passionate 
song  —  Browning  did  not  take  any  deliberate  pains 
with  his  style,  and  that  is  a    greater  misfortune. 
His  freedom  ran  into  undue  Hcence ;  and  he  seems 
to  be  over-conscious,  even  proud,  of  his  fantastical 
way  of  writing.     His  individuality  runs  riot  in  his 
style.     He  paid  little  attention   to  the  well-estab- 
lished rules  of  his  art,  in  a  revulsion,  perhaps,  from 
any  imitation  of   the  great  models.     He  had  not 
enough  reverence  for  his  art,  and  little  for  the  pubHc. 
He  flung  his  diction  at  our  heads  and  said  :  "  This 
is  myself;  take  it  or  leave  it." 

None  of  the  greater  artists  of  the  world  have  ever 
done  this.  They  have  not  cared  for  what  the  world 
said,  but  they  have  cared  for  their  art.  There  are 
certain  Hmits  to  individual  capriciousness  in  style, 
long  since  laid  down,  as  it  were,  by  Beauty  herself  J 
which,  transgressed,  lessen,  injure,  or  lose  beauty- 
and  Browning  continually  transgressed  those  limits! 

•a 


50  BROWNING 

Again,  clearness  is  one  of  the  first  elements  in 
style,  and  on  poetry  attaining  clearness,  depends,  in 
great  measure,  its  endiiringness  in  the  future.  So  far 
as  clearness  carries  him,  Tennyson's  poetry  is  sure  to 
last.  So  far  as  Browning's  obscurity  goes,  his  poetry 
willnot  last  like  Tennyson's.  Itis  all  very  well  for  his 
students  to  say  that  he  is  not  obscure ;  he  is.  Nor 
is  it  by  any  exceptional  depth  of  thought  or  by  any 
specially  profound  analysis  of  the  soul  that  Brown- 
ing is  obscure.  It  is  by  his  style.  By  that  he  makes 
what  is  easy  difficult.  The  reader  does  not  get  at 
what  he  means  as  he  gets  at  what  Homer,  Dante, 
and  Shakespeare  mean.  Dante  and  Shakespeare 
are  often  difficult  through  the  depth  and  difficulty  of 
their  matter ;  they  are  not  difficult,  except  Shake- 
speare when  he  was  learning  his  art,  by  obscurity 
or  carelessness  of  style.  But  Browning  is  difficult, 
not  by  his  thoughts,  but  by  his  expression  of  them. 
A  poet  has  no  right  to  be  so  indifferent,  so  careless 
of  clearness  in  his  art,  I  might  almost  say,  so  lazy. 
Browning  is  negligent  to  a  fault,  almost  to  imperti- 
nence. The  great  poets  put  the  right  words  in  the 
right  places,  and  Tennyson  is  with  them  in  that. 
Browning  continually  puts  his  words  into  the  wrong 
places.  He  leaves  out  words  necessary  for  the  easy 
understanding  of  the  passage,  and  for  no  reason  ex- 
cept his  fancy.  He  leaves  his  sentences  half-finished 
and  his  meaning  half-expressed.  He  begins  a 
sentence,  and  having  begun  it,  three  or  four  thoughts 
connected  with  it  slide  into  his  mind,  and  instead  of 
putting  them  aside  or  using  them  in  another  place, 
he  jerks  them  into  the  middle  of  his  sentence  in  a 
series  of  parentheses,  and  then  inserts  the  end  of 
the  original  sentence,  or  does  not  insert  it  at  all. 


BROWNING  AND   TENNYSON  51 

This  is  irritating  except  to  folk  who  like  discovery 
of  the  twisted  rather  than  poetry ;  and  it  is  quite 
needless.  It  is  worse  than  needless,  for  it  lowers 
the  charm  and  the  dignity  of  the  poetry. 

Yet,  there  is  something  to  say  on  the  other  side. 
It   is   said,  and  with  a    certain    justice,  that  "the 
style  is  the  man.     Strip  his  style  away,  and  where 
is  the  man  }     Where  is  the  real  Browning  if  we 
get  him  to  change  a  way  of  writing  in  which  he 
naturally    shaped    his    thought } "     Well,    no    one 
would  ask  him  to  impose  on  himself  a  style  which 
did  not  fit  his  nature.    That  would  be  fatal.    When 
he  has  sometimes  tried  to  do  so,  as  in  a  few  of  the 
dramas,  we   scarcely  recognise  our  poet,  and  we 
lose  half  of  his  intellectual  and  poetic  charm.    Just 
as  Carlyle  when  he  wrote  away  from  his  natural 
style,  as  in  the  life  of  Sterling  and  Schiller,  is  not 
the  great  writer  he  is   elsewhere,  so  was  it  with 
Browning.     Were  we  savage  satirists,  bUnded  by 
our  savagery,  we  might  then  say  both  of  Browning 
and  Carlyle  that  half  their  power  lay  in  their  fan- 
tastic, rocky  style.     We  should   be   quite  wrong. 
Their  style  was  the  exact  clothing  of  their  thought. 
They  wrote   exactly  as  they  thought ;    and  when 
they  put  their  thought  into  other  clothing,  when 
they  doctored  their  style,  they  did  not  represent 
what  they  really  thought.    No  sensible  person  then 
would  have  asked  Browning  to  change  his  style,  but 
would  have  asked  him  not  to  exaggerate  it  into  its 
defects.     It  is  plain  he  could  have  kept  it  within 
bounds.     He  has  done  so  frequently.     But  as  fre- 
quently he  has  allowed  it  to  leap  about  as  wildly  as 
a  young  colt.     He  should  have  submitted  it  to  the 
manage,  and  ridden  it  then  where  he  pleased.     A 


52  BROWNING 

very  little  trouble  on  his  part,  a  very  little  sacrifice 
of  his  unbridled  fancifulness,  would  have  spared  us 
a  great  deal  of  unnecessary  trouble,  and  made  his 
poetry  better  and  more  enduring. 

Another  excuse  may  be  made  for  his  faults  of 
style.  It  may  be  said  that  in  one  sense  the  faults 
are  excellences.  When  a  poet  has  to  represent  ex- 
cessively subtle  phases  of  thought  and  feeling,  with 
a  crowd  of  side-thoughts  and  side-feelings  intruding 
on  them ;  when  he  has  to  describe  the  excessive 
oddities,  the  curious  turns  of  human  emotion  in 
strange  inward  conditions  or  outward  circumstances 
or  when  he  has  to  deal  with  rugged  or  even  savage 
characters  under  the  sway  of  the  passions;  he 
cannot,  we  are  told,  do  it  otherwise  than  Browning 
did  it,  and,  instead  of  being  lazy,  he  used  these 
quips  and  cranks  of  style  deliberately. 

The  excuse  has  something  in  it.  But,  all  the 
same,  an  artist  should  have  managed  it  otherwise. 
Shakespeare  was  far  more  subtle  in  thought  than 
Browning,  and  he  had  to  deal  with  every  kind  of 
strange  circumstance  and  character ;  but  his  com- 
position and  his  style  illuminate  the  characters, 
order  the  circumstances,  and  render  clear,  as,  for 
example,  in  the  Sonnets,  the  subtleties  of  his 
thought.  A  great  artist,  by  his  comprehensive 
grasp  of  the  main  issue  of  his  work,  even  in  a 
short  lyric  or  a  small  picture,  and  by  his  luminous 
representation  of  it,  suggests,  without  direct  expres- 
sion of  them,  all  the  strange  psychology,  and  the 
play  of  character  in  the  situations.  And  such  an 
artist  does  this  excellent  thing  by  his  noble  com- 
position, and  by  his  lofty,  clear,  and  melodious 
style.     The  excuse  is,  then,  of  some  weight,  but  it 


BROWNING  AND   TENNYSON 


SZ 


does  not  relieve  Browning  of  the  charge.  Had  he 
been  a  greater  artist,  he  would  have  been  a 
greater  master  of  the  right  way  of  saying  things 
and  a  greater  pleasurer  of  the  future.  Had  he 
taken  more  pains  with  his  style,  but  without  losing 
its  individual  elements,  he  might  have  had  as  high 
a  poetic  place  as  Tennyson  in  the  judgment  1)f 
posterity. 

3.    In  one  thing  more  —  in  this  matter  of  form  — 
the  beauty  of  poetry  lies.    It  is  in  sweetness  of  mel- 
ody and  its  charm ;  in  exquisite  fitness  of  its  music 
to  its  thought  and  its  emotion  ;  in  lawful  change  of 
harmony  making  enchanting  variety  to  the  ear;  in 
the   obedience  of    the   melodies    to   the    laws'  of 
the  different  kinds  of  poetry;  and  in  the    lovely 
conduct  of  the  harmonies,  through  all  their  changes, 
to  that  finished  close  which  throws  back  its  own 
beauty  on  all  that  has  preceded  it.     This  part  of  the 
loveliness  of  form  in  poetry,  along  with  composi- 
tion and  style  —  for  without  these  and  without  noble 
matter  of  thought  poetry  is  nothing  but  pleasant 
noise —- secures  also  the  continuous  delight  of  men 
and  the  approving  j  udgment  of  the  future ;  and  in  this 
also  Tennyson,  who  gave  to  it  the  steady  work  of  a 
lifetime,  stands  above  his  brother-poet.     Browning 
was  far  too  careless  of  his  melody.     He  frequently 
sacrificed  it,  and  needlessly,  to  his  thought.     He 
may  have  imagined  that  he  strengthened  the  thing 
he  thought  by  breaking  the  melody.     He  did  not"^ 
he  injured  it.     He  injured  the  melody  also  by  cast- 
ing into  the  middle  of  it,  Hke  stones  into  a  clear 
water,  rough  parenthetic  sounds  to  suit  his  paren- 
thetic phrases.     He  breaks  it  sometimes  into  two 
with  violent  clanging  words,  with  discords  which  he 


54  BROWNING 

does  not  resolve,  but  forgets.  And  in  the  pleasure 
he  took  in  quaint  oddities  of  sound,  in  jarring  tricks 
with  his  metre,  in  fantastic  and  difficult  arrange- 
ments of  rhyme,  in  scientific  displays  of  double 
rhymes,  he,  only  too  often,  immolates  melody  on 
the  altar  of  his  own  cleverness. 

A  great  many  of  the  poems  in  which  the  natural 
loveliness  of  melody  is  thus  sacrificed  or  maimed 
will  last,  on  account  of  the  closely-woven  work  of 
the  intellect  in  them,  and  on  account  of  their  vivid 
presentation  of  the  travail  of  the  soul ;  that  is,  they 
will  last  for  qualities  which  might  belong  to  prose ; 
but  they  will  not  last  as  poetry.  And  other 
poems,  in  which  the  melody  is  only  interrupted 
here  and  there,  will  lose  a  great  deal  of  the  con- 
tinuity of  pleasure  they  would  have  given  to  man 
had  they  been  more  careful  to  obey  those  laws  of 
fine  melody  which  Tennyson  never  disobeys. 

It  is  fortunate  that  neither  of  these  injuries  can 
be  attributed  to  the  whole  of  his  work  ;  and  I  am 
equally  far  from  saying  that  his  faults  of  style  and 
composition  belong  to  all  his  poetry. 

There  are  a  number  of  poems  the  melody  of 
which  is  beautiful,  in  which,  if  there  are  discords, 
they  are  resolved  into  a  happy  concord  at  their 
close.  There  are  others  the  melody  of  which  is  so 
strange,  brilliant,  and  capturing  that  their  sound  is 
never  forgotten.  There  are  others  the  subtle,  minor 
harmonies  of  which  belong  to  and  represent  remote 
pathetic  phases  of  human  passion,  and  they,  too, 
are  heard  by  us  in  lonely  hours  of  pitiful  feeling, 
and  enchant  the  ear  and  heart.  And  these  will 
endure  for  the  noble  pleasure  of  man. 

There  are  also  poems  the  style  of  which  is  fitted 


BROWNING  AND    TENNYSON  55 

most  happily  to  the  subject,  Uke  the  Letter  of 
KarshisJi  to  his  Frierid,  in  which  Browning  has  been 
so  seized  by  his  subject,  and  yet  has  so  mastered  it, 
that  he  has  forgotten  to  intercalate  his  own  fancies  ; 
and  in  which,  if  the  style  is  broken,  it  is  broken  in 
full  harmony  with  the  situation,  and  in  obedience 
to  the  unity  of  impression  he  desired  to  make. 
There  are  others,  like  Abt  Vogler,  in  which  the 
style  is  extraordinarily  noble,  clear,  and  uplifted ; 
and  there  are  long  passages  in  the  more  important 
poems,  like  Paracelsus,  where  the  joy  and  glory  of 
the  thought  and  passion  of  Browning  inform  the 
verse  with  dignity,  and  make  its  march  stately  with 
solemn  and  beautiful  music.  Where  the  style  and 
melody  are  thus  fine  the  composition  is  also  good. 
The  parts,  in  their  variety,  belong  to  one  another 
and  to  the  unity  of  the  whole.  Style,  melody,  and 
composition  are  always  in  the  closest  relation. 
And  this  nobleness  of  composition,  style,  and 
melody  is  chiefly  found  in  those  poems  of  his 
which  have  to  do  with  the  great  matter  of  poetry 
—  the  representation  of  the  universal  and  simple 
passions  of  human  nature  with  their  attendant  and 
necessary  thoughts.  And  there,  in  that  part  of 
his  work,  not  in  that  other  part  for  which  he  is 
unduly  praised,  and  which  belongs  to  the  over- 
subtilised  and  over-intellectual  time  in  which  our 
self-conscious  culture  now  is  striving  to  resist  its 
decay,  and  to  prove  that  its  disease  is  health,  is  the 
lasting  power  of  Browning. 

And  then,  beyond  all  these  matters  of  form, 
there  is  the  poet  himself,  alone  among  his  fellows 
in  his  unique  and  individual  power,  who  has  fast- 
ened himself  into  our  hearts,  added  a  new  world 


56  BROWNING 

to  our  perceptions,  developed  our  lives,  and  enlarged 
our  interests.  And  there  are  the  separate  and 
distinguished  excellences  of  his  work  —  the  virtues 
which  have  no  defects,  the  virtues,  too,  of  his 
defects,  all  the  new  wonders  of  his  realm  —  the 
many  originalities  which  have  justly  earned  for 
him  that  high  and  lonely  seat  on  Parnassus  on 
which  his  noble  Shadow  sits  to-day,  unchallenged 
in  our  time  save  by  that  other  Shadow  with  whom, 
in  reverence  and  love,  we  have  been  perhaps  too 
bold  to  contrast  him. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE    TREATMENT   OF  NATURE 

IT  is  a  difficult  task  to  explain  or  analyse  the 
treatment  of  Nature  by  Browning.  It  is  easy 
enough  to  point  out  his  remarkable  love  of  her  colour, 
his  vivid  painting  of  brief  landscapes,  his  minute 
observation,  his  flashing  way  of  description,  his  feel- 
ing for  the  breadth  and  freshness  of  Nature,  his  love 
of  flowers  and  animals,  and  the  way  he  has  of  hitting 
and  emphasising  the  central  point  or  Hght  of  a 
landscape.  This  is  easy  work,  but  it  is  not  so  easy 
to  capture  and  define  the  way  in  which  his  soul, 
when  he  was  alone,  felt  with  regard  to  the  heavens, 
and  the  earth,  and  all  that  therein  is.  Others,  like 
Wordsworth,  have  stated  this  plainly :  Browning 
has  nowhere  defined  his  way.  What  his  intellect 
held  the  Natural  World  to  be,  in  itself ;  what  it 
meant  for  man  ;  the  relation  in  which  it  stood  to 
God  and  God  to  it  —  these  things  are  partly  plain. 
They  have  their  attraction  for  us.  It  is  always 
interesting  to  know  what  an  imaginative  genius 
thinks  about  such  matters.  But  it  is  only  a  bio- 
graphical or  a  half-scientific  interest.  But  what 
we  want  to  discover  is  how  Browning,  as  a  poet, 
felt  the  world  of  Nature.  We  have  to  try  and 
catch  the  unconscious  attitude  of  his  soul  when  the 

57 


58  BROWNING 

Universe  was  at  work  around  him,  and  he  was  for 
the  time  its  centre  —  and  this  is  the  real  difficulty. 

Sometimes  we  imagine  we  have  caught  and  fixed 
this  elusive  thing,  but  we  finally  give  up  the  quest. 
The  best  we  can  do  is  to  try  to  find  the  two  or  three 
general  thoughts,  the  most  frequently  recurring 
emotions  Browning  had  when  Nature  at  sundry 
hours  and  in  diverse  manners  displayed  before  him 
her  beauty,  splendour,  and  fire,  and  seemed  to  ask 
his  worship ;  or  again,  when  she  stood  apart  from 
him,  with  the  mocking  smile  she  often  wears,  and 
whispered  in  his  ear,  "  Thou  shalt  pursue  me 
always,  but  never  find  my  secret,  never  grasp  my 
streaming  hair."  And  both  these  experiences  are 
to  be  found  in  Browning.  Nature  and  he  are  some- 
times at  one,  and  sometimes  at  two ;  but  seldom 
the  first,  and  generally  the  second. 

The  natural  world  Tennyson  describes  is  for  the 
greater  part  of  it  a  reflection  of  man,  or  used  to 
heighten  man's  feeling  or  to  illustrate  his  action, 
or  sentimentalised  by  memorial  associations  of 
humanity,  or,  finally,  invented  as  a  background  for 
a  human  subject,  and  with  a  distinct  direction  to- 
wards that  subject.  Browning,  with  a  few  excep- 
tions, does  the  exact  opposite.  His  natural  world 
is  not  made  by  our  thought,  nor  does  it  reflect 
our  passions.  His  illustrations,  drawn  from  it,  of 
our  actions,  break  down  at  certain  points,  as  if  the 
illustrating  material  were  alien  from  our  nature. 
Nature,  it  is  true,  he  thinks,  leads  up  to  man,  and 
therefore  has  elements  in  her  which  are  dim  pro- 
phecies and  prognostics  of  us ;  but  she  is  only 
connected  with  us  as  the  road  is  with  the  goal  it 
reaches  in  the  end.     She  exists  independently  of 


THE  TREATMENT  OF  NATURE  59 

US,  but  yet  she  exists  to  suggest  to  us  what  we 
may  become,  to  awaken  in  us  dim  longings  and 
desires,  to  surprise  us  into  confession  of  our  in- 
adequacy, to  startle  us  with  perceptions  of  an 
infinitude  we  do  not  possess  as  yet  but  may 
possess ;  to  make  us  feel  our  ignorance,  weak- 
ness, want  of  finish ;  and  by  partly  exhibiting  the 
variety,  knowledge,  love,  power,  and  finish  of  God, 
to  urge  us  forward  in  humble  pursuit  to  the  infinite 
in  him.  The  day  Browning  climbs  Mont  Saleve, 
at  the  beginning  of  his  poem  La  Saisiaz,  after  a 
description  of  his  climb  in  which  he  notes  a  host 
of  minute  quaintnesses  in  rock  and  flower,  and 
especially  little  flares  of  colour,  all  of  them  unsenti- 
mentalised,  he  suddenly  stands  on  the  mountain-top, 
and  is  smitten  with  the  glory  of  the  view.  What 
does  he  see  .'*  Himself  in  Nature  "i  or  Nature  her- 
self, like  a  living  being.?  Not  at  all.  He  sees 
what  he  thinks  Nature  is  there  to  teach  us  —  not 
herself,  but  what  is  beyond  herself.  "I  was  sta- 
tioned," he  cries,  deliberately  making  this  point, 
"  face  to  face  with  —  Nature  }  —  rather  with  Infini- 
tude." We  are  not  in  Nature :  a  part  of  God 
aspiring  to  the  whole  is  there,  but  not  the  all  of 
God.  And  Nature  shows  forth  her  glory,  not 
to  keep  us  with  herself,  but  to  send  us  on  to 
her  Source,  of  whom  the  universe  is  but  a  shred. 
The  universe  of  what  we  call  matter  in  all  its 
forms,  which  is  the  definition  of  Nature  as  I  speak 
of  it  here,  is  one  form  to  Browning  of  the  creative 
joy  of  God :  we  are  another  form  of  the  same  joy. 
Nor  does  Browning  conceive,  as  Wordsworth  con- 
ceived, of  any  pre-established  harmony  between  us 
and  the  natural  world,  so  that  Humanity  and  Nature 


6o  BROWNING 

can  easily  converse  and  live  together ;  so  that  we  can 
express  our  thoughts  and  emotions  in  terms  of 
Nature ;  or  so  that  Nature  can  have,  as  it  were,  a 
human  soul.  This  is  not  Browning's  conception. 
If  he  had  such  a  conception  he  would  frequently 
use  in  his  descriptions  what  Ruskin  calls  the 
"  pathetic  fallacy,"  the  use  of  which  is  excessively 
common  in  Tennyson.  I  can  scarcely  recall  more 
than  a  very  few  instances  of  this  in  all  the  poetry 
of  Browning.  Even  where  it  seems  to  occur, 
where  Nature  is  spoken  of  in  human  terms,  it  does 
not  really  occur.  Take  this  passage  from  James 
Lees  Wife: 

Oh,  good  gigantic  smile  o'  the  brown  old  earth, 
This  autumn  morning  !     How  he  sets  his  bones 

To  bask  i'  the  sun,  and  thrusts  out  knees  and  feet 

For  the  ripple  to  nm  over  in  its  mirth  ; 

Listening  the  while,  where  on  the  heap  of  stones 

The  white  breast  of  the  sea-lark  twitters  sweet. 

The  smile,  the  mirth,  the  listening,  might  be  said 
to  impute  humanity  to  Nature :  but  the  Earth  and 
the  Sea  are  plainly  quite  distinct  from  us.  These  are 
great  giant  creatures  who  are  not  ourselves  :  Titans 
who  live  with  one  another  and  not  with  us ;  and 
the  terms  of  our  humanity  are  used  to  make  us 
aware  of  their  separate  existence  from  us,  not  of 
their  being  images  only  of  our  mind. 

Another  passage  will  illustrate  the  same  habit 
of  Browning's  mind  with  Nature.  He  describes,  for 
the  purpose  of  his  general  thought,  in  Fijiiie  at  the 
Fairy  the  course  of  a  stormy  sunset.  The  clouds, 
the  sun,  the  night,  act  like  men,  and  are  written  of 
in  terms  of  humanity.  But  this  is  only  to  explain 
matters   to    us ;    the  mighty  creatures  themselves 


THE  TREATMENT  OF  NATURE  6i 

have  nothing  to  do  with  us.  They  Hve  their  own 
vast,  indifferent  life ;  and  we  see,  Uke  spectators, 
what  they  are  doing,  and  do  not  understand  what 
we  see.  The  sunset  seems  to  him  the  last  act  of  an 
ever-recurring  drama,  in  which  the  clouds  barricade 
the  Sun  against  his  rest,  and  he  plays  with  their 
opposition  Hke  the  huge  giant  he  is ;  till  Night, 
with  her  terrific  mace,  angry  with  them  for  pre- 
venting the  Sun  from  repose,  repose  which  will 
make  her  Queen  of  the  world,  beats  them  into  ruin. 
This  is  the  passage : 

For  as  on  edifice  of  cloud  i'  the  grey  and  green 

Of  evening,  —  built  about  some  glory  of  the  west, 

To  barricade  the  sun's  departure,  —  manifest, 

He  plays,  pre-eminently  gold,  gilds  vapour,  crag,  and  crest 

Which  bend  in  rapt  suspense  above  the  act  and  deed 

They  cluster  round  and  keep  their  very  own,  nor  heed 

The  world  at  watch  ;  while  we,  breathlessly  at  the  base 

O'  the  castellated  bulk,  note  momently  the  mace 

Of  night  fall  here,  fall  there,  bring  change  with  every  blow, 

Alike  to  sharpened  shaft  and  broadened  portico 

r  the  structure  ;  heights  and  depths,  beneath  the  leaden  stress 

Crumble  and  melt  and  mix  together,  coalesce. 

Reform,  but  sadder  still,  subdued  yet  more  and  more 

By  every  fresh  defeat,  till  wearied  eyes  need  pore 

No  longer  on  the  dull  impoverished  decadence 

Of  all  that  pomp  of  pile  in  towering  evidence 

So  lately.  — Fifine^  cvi. 

It  is  plain  that  Browning  separates  us  altogether 
from  the  elemental  life  of  these  gigantic  beings. 
And  what  is  true  of  these  passages  is  true,  with  one 
or  two  exceptions,  of  all  the  natural  descriptions  of 
Browning  in  which  the  pathetic  fallacy  seems  to  be 
used  by  him.  I  need  not  say  how  extraordinarily 
apart  this  method  of  his  is  from  that  of  Tennyson. 
Then  Tennyson,  like  Coleridge  —  only  Tennyson 


62  BROWNING 

is  as  vague  and  wavering  in  this  belief  as  Coleridge 
is  firm  and  clear  in  it — sometimes  speaks  as  if 
Nature  did  not  exist  at  all  apart  from  our  thought : 

Her  life  the  eddying  of  our  living  soul  — 

a  possible,  even  a  probable  explanation.  But  it 
is  not  Browning's  view.  There  is  a  celebrated 
passage  in  Paracelsus  which  is  quite  inconsistent 
with  it.  All  Nature,  from  the  beginning,  is  made 
to  issue  forth  from  the  joy  God  has  in  making,  in 
embodying  his  thought  in  form ;  and  when  one 
form  has  been  made  and  rejoiced  in,  in  making 
another  still  more  lovely  on  the  foundation  of  the 
last.  So,  joy  after  joy,  the  world  was  built,  till, 
in  the  life  of  all  he  has  made,  God  sees  his  ancient 
rapture  of  movement  and  power,  and  feels  his 
delight  renewed.  I  will  not  quote  it  here,  but  only 
mark  that  we  and  the  "  eddying  of  our  living  soul  " 
have  nothing  to  do  with  the  making  of  this  Nature. 
It  is  not  even  the  thoughts  of  God  in  us.  God  and 
Nature  are  alone,  and  were  alone  together  countless 
years  before  we  were  born.  But  man  was  the 
close  of  all.  Nature  was  built  up,  through  every 
stage,  that  man  might  know  himself  to  be  its 
close  —  its  seal  —  but  not  it.  It  is  a  separate,  un- 
human  form  of  God.  Existing  thus  apart,  it  does 
a  certain  work  on  us,  impressing  us  from  without. 
The  God  in  it  speaks  to  the  God  in  us.  It  may 
sometimes  be  said  to  be  interested  in  us,  but  not 
like  a  man  in  a  man.  He  even  goes  so  far  as  to 
impute  to  Nature,  but  rarely,  such  an  interest  in  us; 
but  in  reality  he  rather  thinks  that  we,  being  Nature's 
end,  have  at  such  times  touched  for  a  moment  some 
of  those  elements  in  her  which  have  come  down  to 


THE  TREATMENT  OF  NATURE  (y2> 

US  —  elements  apart  from  the  soul.  And  Browning 
takes  care,  even  when  he  represents  Nature  as  sud- 
denly at  one  with  us,  to  keep  up  the  separateness. 
The  interest  spoken  of  is  not  a  human  interest,  nor 
resembles  it.  It  is  like  the  interest  Ariel  takes  in 
Prospero  and  Miranda  —  an  elemental  interest,  that 
of  a  creature  whose  nature  knows  its  radical  differ- 
ence from  human  nature.  If  Nature  sees  us  in 
sorrow  or  in  joy,  she  knows,  in  these  few  passages 
of  Browning's  poetry,  or  seems  to  know,  that  we 
mourn  or  rejoice,  and  if  she  could  feel  with  us  she 
would  ;  but  she  cannot  quite  do  so.  Like  Ariel,  she 
would  be  grieved  with  the  grief  of  Gonzalo,  were  her 
affections  human.  She  has  then  a  wild,  unhuman, 
unmoral,  unspiritual  interest  in  us,  like  a  being 
who  has  an  elemental  life,  but  no  soul.  But 
sometimes  she  is  made  to  go  farther,  and  has 
the  same  kind  of  interest  in  us  which  Oberon 
has  in  the  loves  of  Helena  and  Hermia.  When 
we  are  loving,  and  on  the  verge  of  such  untroubled 
joy  as  Nature  has  always  in  her  being,  then  she 
seems  able,  in  Browning's  poetry,  to  actually  work 
for  us,  and  help  us  into  the  fulness  of  our  joy.  In 
his  poem.  By  the  Fireside,  he  tells  how  he  and  the 
woman  he  loved  were  brought  to  know  their  love. 
It  is  a  passage  full  of  his  peculiar  view  of  Nature. 
The  place  where  the  two  lovers  stay  their  footsteps 
on  the  hill  knows  all  about  them.  "  It  is  silent  and 
aware."     But  it  is  apart  from  them  also : 

It  has  had  its  scenes,  its  joys,  and  crimes, 
But  that  is  its  own  affair. 

And  its  silence  also  is  its  own.  Those  who  linger 
there  think  that  the  place  longs  to  speak ;  its  bosom 


64  BROWNING 

seems  to  heave  with  all  it  knows ;  but  the  desire  is 
its  own,  not  ours  transferred  to  it.  But  when  the 
two  lovers  were  there,  Nature,  of  her  own  accord, 
made  up  a  spell  for  them  and  troubled  them  into 
speech : 

A  moment  after,  and  hands  unseen 

Were  hanging  the  night  around  us  fast ; 

But  we  knew  that  a  bar  w^as  broken  between 
Life  and  life  :  we  were  mixed  at  last 

In  spite  of  the  mortal  screen. 

The  forests  had  done  it ;  there  they  stood ; 

We  caught  for  a  moment  the  powers  at  play  : 
They  had  mingled  us  so,  for  once  and  good, 

Their  work  was  done  —  we  might  go  or  stay, 
They  relapsed  to  their  ancient  mood. 

Not  one  of  the  poets  of  this  century  would  have 
thought  in  that  fashion  concerning  Nature.  Only 
for  a  second,  man  happened  to  be  in  harmony  with 
the  Powers  at  play  in  Nature.  They  took  the  two 
lovers  up  for  a  moment,  made  them  one,  and 
dropped  them.  "  They  relapsed  to  their  ancient 
mood."  The  line  is  a  whole  lesson  in  Browning's 
view  of  Nature.  But  this  special  interest  in  us  is 
rare,  for  we  are  seldom  in  the  blessed  mood  of  unself- 
conscious  joy  and  love.  When  we  are,  on  the  other 
hand,  self-conscious,  or  in  doubt,  or  out  of  harmony 
with  love  and  joy,  or  anxious  for  the  transient 
things  of  the  world  —  Nature,  unsympathetic  wholly, 
mocks  and  plays  with  us  like  a  faun.  When 
Sordello  climbs  the  ravine,  thinking  of  himself  as 
Apollo,  the  wood,  "  proud  of  its  observer,"  a 
mocking  phrase,  *'  tried  surprises  on  him,  strata- 
gems, and  games." 

Or,  our  life  is  too  small  for  her  greatness.    When 


THE  TREATMENT  OF  NATURE  65 

we  are  unworthy  our  high  lineage,  noisy  or  mean, 

then  we  .,  ,    ^ 

quail  before  a  quiet  sky 

Or  sea,  too  little  for  their  quietude. 

That  is  a  phrase  which  might  fall  in  with  Words- 
worth's theory  of  Nature,  but  this  which  follows 
from  The  Englishman  in  Italy,  is  only  Browning's. 
The  man  has  climbed  to  the  top  of  Calvano, 

And  God's  own  profound 
Was  above  me,  and  round  me  the  mountains, 

And  under,  the  sea, 
And  within  me,  my  heart  to  bear  witness 

What  was  and  shall  be. 

He  is  worthy  of  the  glorious  sight;  full  of 
eternal  thoughts.  Wordsworth  would  then  have 
made  the  soul  of  Nature  sympathise  with  his  soul. 
But  Browning  makes  Nature  manifest  her  apart- 
ness from  the  man.  The  mountains  know  nothing 
of  his  soul :  they  amuse  themselves  with  him  ;  they 
are  even  half  angry  with  him  for  his  intrusion  — 
a  foreigner  who  dares  an  entrance  into  their  untres- 
passed  world.  Tennyson  could  not  have  thought 
that  way.  It  is  true  the  mountains  are  alive  in  the 
poet's  thought,  but  not  with  the  poet's  life:  nor 
does  he  touch  them  with  his  sentiment. 

Oh,  those  mountains,  their  infinite  movement! 

Still  moving  with  you  ; 
For,  ever  some  new  head  and  heart  of  them 

Thrusts  into  view 
To  observe  the  intruder ;  you  see  it 

If  quickly  you  turn 
And,  before  they  escape  you  surprise  them. 

They  grudge  you  should  learn 
How  the  soft  plains  they  look  on,  lean  over 
And  love  (they  pretend)  — 

Cower  beneath  them. 


66  BROWNIIVG 

Total  apartness  from  us !  Nature  mocking,  sur- 
prising us ;  watching  us  from  a  distance,  even 
pleased  to  see  us  going  to  our  destruction.  We 
may  remember  how  the  hills  look  grimly  on  Childe 
Roland  when  he  comes  to  the  tower.  The  very 
sunset  comes  back  to  see  him  die : 

before  it  left, 
The  dying  sunset  kindled  through  a  cleft : 
The  hills,  like  giants  at  a  hunting,  lay. 
Chin  upon  hand,  to  see  the  game  at  bay. 

Then,  as  if  they  loved  to  see  the  death  of  their 
quarry,  cried,  without  one  touch  of  sympathy : 

"Now  stab  and  end  the  creature  —  to  the  heft !  " 

And  once,  so  divided  from  our  life  is  her  life,  she 
pities  her  own  case  and  refuses  our  pity.  Man 
cannot  help  her.  The  starved,  ignoble  country  in 
Childe  Rolajid,  one  of  the  finest  pieces  of  descrip- 
tion in  Browning,  wicked,  waste,  and  leprous  land, 
makes  Nature  herself  sick  with  peevish  wrath.  *'  I 
cannot  help  my  case,"  she  cries.  "  Nothing  but  the 
Judgment's  fire  can  cure  the  place." 

On  the  whole,  then,  for  these  instances  might 
be  supported  by  many  more.  Nature  is  alive  in 
Browning,  but  she  is  not  humanised  at  all,  nor  at 
all  at  one  with  us.  Tennyson  does  not  make  her 
alive,  but  he  does  humanise  her.  The  other  poets 
of  the  century  do  make  her  alive,  but  they  harmonise 
her  in  one  way  or  another  with  us.  Browning  is 
distinct  from  them  all  in  keeping  her  quite  divided 
from  man. 

But  then  he  has  observed  that  Nature  is  expressed 
in  terms  of  man,  and  he  naturally,  for  this  conflicts 
with  his  general  view,  desires  to  explain  this.     He 


THE  TREATMENT  OF  NATURE  67 

does  explain  it  in  a  passage  in  Paracelsus.     Man, 
once  descried,  imprints  for  ever 

His  presence  on  all  lifeless  things  ;  the  winds 

Are  henceforth  voices,  wailing  or  a  shout, 

A  querulous  mutter  or  a  quick  gay  laugh, 

Never  a  senseless  gust  now  man  is  born. 

The  herded  pines  commune  and  have  deep  thoughts, 

A  secret  they  assemble  to  discuss 

When  the  sun  drops  behind  their  trunks  which  glare 

Like  gates  of  hell :  the  peedess  cup  afloat 

Of  the  lake-lily  is  an  urn,  some  nymph 

Swims  bearing  high  above  her  head :  no  bird 

Whistles  unseen,  but  through  the  gaps  above 

That  let  light  in  upon  the  gloomy  woods, 

A  shape  peeps  from  the  breezy  forest-top, 

Arch  with  small  puckered  mouth  and  mocking  eye. 

The  morn  has  enterprise,  deep  quiet  droops 

With  evening,  triumph  takes  the  sunset  hour, 

Voluptuous  transport  ripens  with  the  corn 

Beneath  a  warm  moon  like  a  happy  face : 

—  And  this  to  fill  us  with  regard  for  Man. 

He  does  not  say,  as  the  other  poets  do,  that  the 
pines  really  commune,  or  that  the  morn  has  enter- 
prise, or  that  nymphs  and  satyrs  live  in  the  woods, 
but  that  this  seems  to  be,  because  man,  as  the 
crown  of  the  natural  world,  throws  back  his  soul 
and  his  soul's  life  on  all  the  grades  of  inferior  life 
which  preceded  him.  It  is  Browning's  contradiction 
of  any  one  who  thinks  that  the  pathetic  fallacy 
exists  in  his  poetry. 

Nature  has  then  a  life  of  her  own,  her  own 
joys  and  sorrows,  or  rather,  only  joy.  Browning, 
indeed,  with  his  intensity  of  imagination  and  his 
ineradicable  desire  of  Hfe,  was  not  the  man  to 
conceive  Nature  as  dead,  as  having  no  conscious 
being  of  any  kind.  He  did  not  impute  a  personality 
Hke  ours  to  Nature,  but  he  saw  joy  and  rapture  and 


68  BROWNING 

play,  even  love,  moving  in  everything ;  and  some- 
times he  added  to  this  delight  she  has  in  herself  — 
and  just  because  the  creature  was  not  human  —  a 
touch  of  elemental  unmoral  malice,  a  tricksome 
sportiveness  like  that  of  Puck  in  ]\Iidsuimner 
NigJifs  Drca7fi.  The  life,  then,  of  Nature  had  no 
relation  of  its  own  to  our  life;  but  we  had  some 
relation  to  it  because  we  were  conscious  that  we 
were  its  close  and  its  completion. 

It  follows  from  this  idea  of  Browning's  that  he 
was  capable  of  describing  Nature  as  she  is,  without 
adding  any  deceiving  mist  of  human  sentiment  to 
his  descriptions ;  and  of  describing  her  as  accu- 
rately and  as  vividly  as  Tennyson,  even  more  vividly, 
because  of  his  extraordinary  eye  for  colour.  And 
Nature,  so  described,  is  of  great  interest  in  Brown- 
ing's poetry. 

But,  then,  in  any  description  of  Nature,  we  desire 
the  entrance  into  such  description  of  some  human 
feeling  so  that  it  may  be  a  more  complete  theme  for 
poetry.  Browning  does  this  in  a  different  way  from 
Tennyson,  who  gives  human  feelings  and  thoughts 
to  Nature,  or  steeps  it  in  human  memories. 
Browning  catches  Nature  up  into  himself,  and 
the  human  element  is  not  in  Nature  but  in  him,  in 
what  he  thinks  and  feels,  in  all  that  Nature,  quite 
apart  from  him,  awakens  in  him.  Sometimes  he 
even  goes  so  far  as  to  toss  Nature  aside  altogether, 
as  unworthy  to  be  thought  of  in  comparison  with 
humanity.  That  joy  in  Nature  herself,  for  her 
own  sake,  which  was  so  distinguishing  a  mark 
of  Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  Shelley,  Byron,  and 
Keats,  is  rarely,  if  ever,  found  in  Browning.  This 
places  him  apart.     What  he  loved  was  man ;  and 


THE  TREATMENT  OF  NATURE  69 

save  at  those  times  of  which  I  have  spoken,  when 
he  conceives  Nature  as  the  Hfe  and  play  and  wrath 
and  fancy  of  huge  elemental  powers  like  gods  and 
goddesses,  he  uses  her  as  a  background  only  for 
human  life.  She  is  of  little  importance  unless 
man  be  present,  and  then  she  is  no  more  than 
the  scenery  in  a  drama.  Take  the  first  two  verses 
of  A  Lovers'  Qiiairel, 

Oh,  what  a  dawn  of  day  ! 

How  the  March  sun  feels  like  May  ! 

All  is  blue  again 

After  last  night's  rain. 
And  the  South  dries  the  hawthorn-spray. 

That  is  well  done  —  he  has  liked  what  he  saw. 
But  what  is  it  all,  he  thinks ;  what  do  I  care 
about  it }     And  he  ends  the  verse  : 

Only,  my  Lovers  away! 
rd  as  lief  that  the  blue  were  grey. 

Then  take  the  next  verse  : 

Runnels,  which  rillets  swell, 
Must  be  dancing  down  the  dell, 

With  a  foaming  head 

On  the  beryl  bed 
Paven  smooth  as  a  hermit's  cell. 

It  is  excellent  description,  but  it  is  only  scenery  for 
the  real  passion  in  Browning's  mind. 

Each  with  a  tale  to  tell  — 
Could  my  Love  but  attend  as  well. 

By  the  Fireside  illustrates  the  same  point.  No 
description  can  be  better,  more  close,  more  ob- 
served, than  of  the  whole  walk  over  the  hill ;  but 
it  is  mere  scenery  for  the  lovers.  The  real  passion 
lies  in  their  hearts. 


70  BROWNING 

We  have  then  direct  description  of  Nature  ;  direct 
description  of  man  sometimes  as  influenced  by 
Nature  ;  sometimes  Nature  used  as  the  scenery  of 
human  passion  ;  but  no  intermingling  of  them  both. 
Each  is  for  ever  distinct.  The  only  thing  that  unites 
them  in  idea,  and  in  the  end,  is  that  both  have  pro- 
ceeded from  the  creative  joy  of  God. 

Of  course  this  way  of  thinking  permits  of  the 
things  of  Nature  being  used  to  illustrate  the  doings, 
thinkings,  and  character  of  man  ;  and  in  none  of 
his  poems  is  such  illustration  better  used  than  in 
Sordello.  There  is  a  famous  passage,  in  itself  a 
noble  description  of  the  opulent  generativeness  of  a 
warm  land  like  Italy,  in  which  he  compares  the  rich, 
poetic  soul  of  Sordello  to  such  a  land,  and  the 
lovely  line  in  it, 

And  still  more  labyrinthine  buds  the  rose, 

holds  in  its  symboUsm  the  whole  essence  of  a  great 
artist's  nature.  I  quote  the  passage.  It  describes 
Sordello,  and  it  could  not  better  describe  Italy : 

Sordello  foremost  in  the  regal  class 

Nature  has  broadly  severed  from  the  mass 

Of  men,  and  framed  for  pleasure,  as  she  frames 

Some  happy  lands,  that  have  luxurious  names, 

For  loose  fertility  ;  a  footfall  there 

Suffices  to  upturn  to  the  warm  air 

Half-germinating  spices  ;  mere  decay 

Produces  richer  life ;  and  day  by  day 

New  pollen  on  the  lily-petal  grows. 

And  still  more  labyrinthine  buds  the  rose. 

That  compares  to  the  character  of  a  whole 
country  the  character  of  a  whole  type  of  humanity. 
I  take  another  of  such  comparisons,  and  it  is  as 


THE  TREATMENT  OF  NATURE  71 

minute  as  this  is  broad,  and  done  with  as  great 
skill  and  charm.  Sordello  is  full  of  poetic  fancies, 
touched  and  glimmering  with  the  dew  of  youth,  and 
he  has  woven  them  around  the  old  castle  where  he 
lives.  Browning  compares  the  young  man's  imagi- 
native play  to  the  airy  and  audacious  labour  of  the 
spider.     He,  that  is,  Sordello, 

Cer-festooning  every  interval, 
As  the  adventurous  spider,  making  light 
Of  distance,  shoots  her  threads  from  depth  to  height, 
From  barbican  to  battlement :  so  flung 
Fantasies  forth  and  in  their  centre  svvunof 
Our  architect,  —  the  breezy  morning  fresh 
Above,  and  merry,  —  all  his  waving  mesh 
Laughing  with  lucid  dew-drops  rainbow-edged. 

It  could  not  be  better  done.  The  description 
might  stand  alone,  but  better  than  it  is  the  image 
it  gives  of  the  joy,  fancifulness,  and  creativeness  of 
a  young  poet,  making  his  web  of  thoughts  and 
imaginations,  swinging  in  their  centre  like  the 
spider ;  all  of  them  subtle  as  the  spider's  threads, 
obeying  every  passing  wind  of  impulse,  and  gemmed 
with  the  dew  and  sunlight  of  youth. 

Again,  in  A  Bean-ShHpe :  also  Apple-Eating,  Fer- 
ishtah  is  asked —  Is  life  a  good  or  bad  thing,  white  or 
black  }  "  Good,"  says  Ferishtah,  "  if  one  keeps 
moving.  I  only  move.  When  I  stop,  I  may  stop  in 
a  black  place  or  a  white.  But  everything  around  me 
is  motionless  as  regards  me,  and  is  nothing  more 
than  stuff  which  tests  my  power  of  throwing  light 
and  colour  on  them  as  I  move.  It  is  I  who  make 
life  good  or  bad,  black  or  white.  I  am  like  the 
moon  going  through  vapour"  —  and  this  is  the 
illustration : 


72  BROWNING 

Mark  the  flying  orb! 
Think'st  thou  the  halo,  painted  still  afresh 
At  each  new  cloud-fleece  pierced  and  passaged  through, 
This  was  and  is  and  will  be  evermore 
Coloured  in  permanence  ?     The  glory  swims 
Girdling  the  glory-giver,  swallowed  straight 
By  nighfs  abysmal  gloom,  unglorified 
Behind  as  erst  before  the  advancer :  gloom  ? 
Faced  by  the  onward-faring,  see,  succeeds 
From  the  abandoned  heaven  a  next  surprise, 
And  Where's  the  gloom  now  ? —  silver-smitten  straight, 
One  glow  and  variegation  !     So,  with  me, 
Who  move  and  make,  —  myself,  —  the  black,  the  white, 
The  good,  the  bad,  of  life's  environment. 

Fine  as  these  illustrations  are,  intimate  and 
minute,  they  are  only  a  few  out  of  a  multitude  of 
those  comparisons  which  in  Browning  image  what 
is  in  man  from  that  which  is  within  Nature  —  hints, 
prognostics,  prophecies,  as  he  would  call  them,  of 
humanity,  but  not  human. 

There  is,  however,  one  human  passion  which 
Browning  conceives  as  existing  in  Nature  —  the 
passion  of  joy.  But  it  is  a  different  joy  from  ours. 
It  is  not  dashed  by  any  sorrow,  and  it  is  very  rarely 
that  we  are  so  freed  from  pain  or  from  self-con- 
templation as  to  be  able  to  enter  even  for  a  brief 
hour  into  the  rapture  of  Nature.  That  rapture,  in 
Browning's  thought,  was  derived  from  the  creative 
thought  of  God  exercising  itself  with  dehght  in  the 
incessant  making  of  Nature.  And  its  manifestation 
was  life,  that  joyful  rush  of  life  in  all  things  into 
fuller  and  fuller  being.  No  poet  felt  this  ecstasy 
of  mere  living  in  Nature  more  deeply  than  Browning. 
His  own  rapture  (the  word  is  not  too  strong)  in  it 
appears  again  and  again  in  his  poetry,  and  when  it 
does.  Browning  is  not  a  man  sympathising  from 


THE  TREATMEIVT  OF  NATURE  73 

without  with  Nature.  He  is  then  a  part  of  Nature 
herself,  a  living  piece  of  the  great  organism,  having 
his  own  rejoicing  life  in  the  mightier  life  which 
includes  him ;  and  feeling,  with  the  rest,  the 
abounding  pleasure  of  continuous  life  reaching  up- 
wards through  growth  to  higher  forms  of  being, 
swifter  powers  of  living.  I  might  give  many 
examples,  but  one  will  suffice,  and  it  is  the  more 
important  because  it  belongs  not  to  his  ardent 
youth,  but  to  his  mature  manhood.  It  is  part  of 
the  song  of  Thamuris  in  AristopJianes  Apology. 
Thamuris,  going  to  meet  the  Muses  in  rivalry, 
sings  as  he  walks  in  the  splendid  morning  the  song 
of  the  rapture  of  the  life  of  Earth,  and  is  himself 
part  of  the  rejoicing  movement. 

Thamuris,  marching,  laughed  "  Each  flake  of  foam  " 

(As  sparklingly  the  ripple  raced  him  by) 

^' Mocks  slower  clouds  adrift  in  the  blue  dome  ! " 

For  Autumn  was  the  season  ;  red  the  sky 
Held  morn's  conclusive  signet  of  the  sun 
To  break  the  mists  up,  bid  them  blaze  and  die. 

Morn  had  the  mastery  as,  one  by  one 

All  pomps  produced  themselves  along  the  tract 

From  earth's  far  ending  to  near  heaven  begun. 

Was  there  a  ravaged  tree  ?  it  laughed  compact 
With  gold,  a  leaf-ball  crisp,  high  brandished  now, 
Tempting  to  onset  frost  which  late  attacked. 

Was  there  a  wizened  shrub,  a  starveling  bough, 

A  fleecy  thistle  filched  from  by  the  wind, 

A  weed,  Pan's  trampling  hoof  would  disallow  ? 

Each,  with  a  glory  and  a  rapture  twined 
About  it,  joined  the  rush  of  air  and  light 
And  force  :  the  world  was  of  one  joyous  mind. 


74  BROWNmC 

Say  not  the  birds  flew  !  they  forebore  their  right  — 

Swam,  revelling  onward  in  the  roll  of  things. 

Say  not  the  beasts'  mirth  bounded  !  that  was  flight  — 

How  could  the  creatures  leap,  no  lift  of  wings  ? 
Such  earth's  community  of  purpose,  such 
The  ease  of  earth's  fulfilled  imaginings,  — 

So  did  the  near  and  far  appear  to  touch 

r  the  moment's  transport,  —  that  an  interchange 

Of  function,  far  with  near,  seemed  scarce  too  much  ; 

And  had  the  rooted  plant  aspired  to  range 

With  the  snake's  licence,  while  the  insect  yearned 

To  glow  fixed  as  the  flower,  it  were  not  strange  — 

No  more  than  if  the  fluttery  tree-top  turned 

To  actual  music,  sang  itself  aloft ; 

Or  if  the  wind,  impassioned  chantress,  earned 

The  right  to  soar  embodied  in  some  soft 
Fine  form  all  fit  for  cloud  companionship, 
And,  blissful,  once  touch  beauty  chased  so  oft. 

Thamuris,  marching,  let  no  fancy  slip 

Born  of  the  fiery  transport ;  lyre  and  song 

Were  his,  to  smite  with  hand  and  launch  from  lip  — 

The  next  thing  to  touch  on  is  his  drawing  of 
landscape,  not  now  of  separate  pieces  of  Nature,  but 
of  the  whole  view  of  a  land  seen  under  a  certain 
aspect  of  the  heavens.  All  the  poets  ought  to  be 
able  to  do  this  well,  and  I  drew  attention  to  the 
brief,  condensed,  yet  fan-opening  fashion  in  which 
Tennyson  has  done  it.  Sometimes  the  poets  de- 
scribe what  they  see  before  them,  or  have  seen ; 
drawing  directly  from  Nature.  Sometimes  they 
invent  a  wide  or  varied  landscape  as  a  background 
for  a  human  subject,  and  arrange  and  tone  it  for 
that  purpose.  Shelley  did  this  with  great  stateliness 
and  subtlety.       Browning  does  not  do  it,  except, 


THE  TREATMENT  OF  NATURE  75 

perhaps,  in  Christmas-Eve^  when  he  prepares  the 
night  for  the  appearance  of  Christ.  Nevertheless, 
even  in  CJiristmas-Eve,  the  description  of  the  hmar 
rainbow  is  of  a  thing  he  has  seen,  of  a  not-invented 
thing,  and  it  is  as  clear,  vivid,  and  natural  as  it  can 
be ;  only  it  is  heightened  and  thrilled  through  by 
the  expectancy  and  the  thrill  in  Browning's  soul 
which  the  reader  feels  and  which  the  poet,  through 
his  emotion,  makes  the  reader  comprehend.  But 
there  is  no  suggestion  that  any  of  this  feeling  exists 
in  Nature.  The  rainbow  has  no  consciousness 
of  the  vision  to  come  or  of  the  passion  in  the 
poet  (as  it  would  have  had  in  Wordsworth),  and 
therefore  is  painted  with  an  accuracy  undimmed 
by  any  transference  to  Nature  of  the  soul  of  the 
poet. 

I  quote  the  piece ;  it  is  a  noble  specimen  of  his 
landscape  work : 

But  lo,  what  think  you  ?  suddenly 

The  rain  and  the  wind  ceased,  and  the  sky 

Received  at  once  the  full  fruition 

Of  the  moon's  consummate  apparition. 

The  black  cloud  barricade  was  riven, 

Ruined  beneath  her  feet,  and  driven 

Deep  in  the  West ;  while  bare  and  breathless, 

North  and  South  and  East  lay  ready 
For  a  glorious  thing  that,  dauntless,  deathless, 

Sprang  across  them  and  stood  steady. 

'Twas  a  moon-rainbow,  vast  and  perfect, 
From  heaven  to  heaven  extending,  perfect 
As  the  mother-moon's  self,  full  in  face. 
It  rose,  distinctly  at  the  base 

With  its  severe  proper  colours  chorded, 
Which  still,  in  the  rising,  were  compressed, 
Until  at  last  they  coalesced, 

And  supreme  the  spectral  creature  lorded 


76  ,       BROWNIIVG 

In  a  triumph  of  whitest  white, — 

Above  which  intervened  the  night. 

But  above  night  too,  Hke  only  the  next, 
The  second  of  a  wondrous  sequence, 
Reaching  in  rare  and  rarer  frequence. 

Till  the  heaven  of  heavens  were  circumflexed, 

Another  rainbow  rose,  a  mightier, 

Fainter,  fiushier,  and  flightier,  — 

Rapture  dying  along  its  verge. 

Oh,  whose  foot  shall  I  see  emerge. 

Whose,  from  the  straining  topmost  dark, 

On  to  the  key-stone  of  that  arc  ? 

This  is  only  a  piece  of  sky,  though  I  have  called 
it  landscape  work.  But  then  the  sky  is  frequently 
treated  alone  by  Browning ;  and  is  always  present 
in  power  over  his  landscapes  —  it,  and  the  winds  in 
it.  This  is  natural  enough  for  one  who  lived  so 
much  in  Italy,  where  the  scenery  of  the  sky  is  more 
superb  than  that  of  the  earth  —  so  various,  noble, 
and  surprising  that  when  Nature  plays  there,  as  a 
poet,  her  tragedy  and  comedy,  one  scarcely  takes 
the  trouble  of  considering  the  earth. 

However,  we  find  an  abundance  of  true  land- 
scapes in  Browning.  They  are,  with  a  few  excep- 
tions, Italian  ;  and  they  have  that  grandeur  and 
breadth,  that  intensity  given  by  blazing  colour, 
that  peculiar  tint  either  of  labyrinthine  or  of  tragic 
sentiment  which  belong  to  Italy.  I  select  a  few 
of  them : 

The  morn  when  first  it  thunders  in  March 

The  eel  in  the  pond  gives  a  leap,  they  say  ; 
As  I  leaned  and  looked  over  the  aloed  arch 

Of  the  villa-gate  this  warm  March  day. 
No  flash  snapped,  no  dumb  thunder  rolled 

In  the  valley  beneath  where,  white  and  wide. 
Washed  by  the  morning  water-gold, 

Florence  lay  out  on  the  mountain  side. 


THE  TREATMENT  OF  NATURE  77 

River  and  bridge  and  street  and  square 
Lay  mine,  as  much  at  my  beck  and  call, 

Through  the  live  translucent  bath  of  air, 
As  the  sights  in  a  magic  crystal  ball. 

Here   is   the    Roman    Campagna   and   its  very 
sentiment : 

The  champaign  with  its  endless  fleece 

Of  feathery  grasses  everywhere  ! 
Silence  and  passion,  joy  and  peace, 

An  everlasting  wash  of  air  — 
Rome's  ghost  since  her  decease. 

And  this  might  be  in  the  same  place  : 

Where  the  quiet-coloured  end  of  evening  smiles, 

Miles  and  miles 
On  the  solitary  pastures  where  our  sheep 

Half-asleep 
Tinkle  homeward  through  the  twilight  — 

This  is  a  crimson  sunset  over  dark  and  distant 
woods  in  autumn  : 

That  autumn  eve  was  stilled : 
A  last  remains  of  sunset  dimly  burned 
O'er  the  far  forests,  like  a  torch-flame  turned 
By  the  wind  back  upon  its  bearer's  hand 
In  one  long  flare  of  crimson  ;  as  a  brand 
The  woods  beneath  lay  black.     A  single  eye 
From  all  Verona  cared  for  the  soft  sky. 

And  if  we  desire  a  sunrise,  there  is  the  triumphant 
beginning  oiPippa  Passes  —  a  glorious  outburst  of 
light,  colour,  and  splendour,  impassioned  and  rush- 
ing, the  very  upsoaring  of  Apollo's  head  behind  his 
furious  steeds.  It  begins  with  one  word,  Hke  a 
single  stroke  on  the  gong  of  Nature :  it  continues 
till  the  whole  of  the  overarching  vault,  and  the 
world  below,  in  vast  disclosure,  is  flooded  with  an 
ocean  of  gold. 


78  BROWNING 

Day! 

Faster  and  more  fast, 
O'er  night's  brim,  day  boils  at  last ; 
Boils,  pure  gold,  o'er  the  cloud-cup's  brim 
Where  spurting  and  suppressed  it  lay, 
For  not  a  froth-flake  touched  the  rim 
Of  yonder  gap  in  the  solid  grey 
Of  the  eastern  cloud,  an  hour  away ; 
But  forth  one  wavelet,  then  another,  curled, 
Till  the  whole  sunrise,  not  to  be  suppressed, 
Rose,  reddened,  and  its  seething  breast 
Flickered  in  bounds,  grew  gold,  then  overflowed  the  world. 

This  is  chiefly  of  the  sky,  but  the  description  in 
that  gipsy-hearted  poem,  The  Flight  of  the  Duchess, 
brings  before  us,  at  great  length,  league  after  league 
of  wide-spreading  landscape.  It  is,  first,  of  the 
great  wild  country,  cornfield,  vineyards,  sheep- 
ranges,  open  chase,  till  we  arrive  at  last  at  the 
mountains  ;  and  climbing  up  among  their  pines,  dip 
down  into  a  yet  vaster  and  wilder  country,  a  red, 
drear,  burnt-up  plain,  over  which  we  are  carried 
for  miles : 

Till  at  the  last,  for  a  bounding  belt. 

Comes  the  salt  sand  hoar  of  the  great  sea-shore. 

Or  we  may  read  the  G^'animariari  s  Fimeraly  where 
we  leave  the  city  walls  and  climb  the  peak  on  whose 
topmost  ledge  he  is  to  be  buried.  As  we  ascend 
the  landscape  widens  ;  we  see  it  expanding  in  the 
verse.  Moreover,  with  a  wonderful  power.  Brown- 
ing makes  us  feel  the  air  grow  keener,  fresher, 
brighter,  more  soundless,  and  lonelier.  That,  too, 
is  given  by  the  verse ;  it  is  a  triumph  in  Nature- 
poetry. 

Nor  is  he  less  effective  in  narrow  landscape, 
in    the    description    of    small    shut-in   spaces   of 


THE  TREATMENT  OF  NATURE 


79 


Nature.  There  is  the  garden  at  the  beginning 
of  Paracelsus  ;  the  ravine,  step  by  step,  in  Patilme  ; 
the  sea-beach,  and  its  little  cabinet  landscapes,  in 
James  Lees  Wife ;  the  exquisite  pictures  of  the 
path  over  the  Col  di  Colma  in  By  the  Fireside  —  for 
though  the  whole  of  the  landscape  is  given,  yet 
each  verse  almost  might  stand  as  a  small  picture  by 
itself.  It  is  one  of  Browning's  favourite  ways  of 
description,  to  walk  slowly  through  the  landscape, 
describing  step  by  step  those  parts  of  it  which 
strike  him  and  leaving  to  us  to  combine  the  parts 
into  the  whole.  But  his  way  of  combination  is  to 
touch  the  last  thing  he  describes  with  human  love, 
and  to  throw  back  this  atmosphere  of  feeling  over 
all  the  pictures  he  has  made.  The  verses  I  quote 
do  this. 

Oh  moment,  one  and  infinite  ! 

The  water  slips  o'er  stock  and  stone ; 
The  West  is  tender,  hardly  bright  : 

How  grey  at  once  is  the  evening  grown  — ■ 
One  star,  its  chrysolite  ! 

We  two  stood  there  with  never  a  third. 
But  each  by  each,  as  each  knew  well : 

The  sights  we  saw  and  the  sounds  we  heard. 
The  lights  and  the  shades  made  up  a  spell 

Till  the  trouble  grew  and  stirred. 

Oh,  the  little  more,  and  how  much  it  is  ! 

And  the  little  less,  and  what  worlds  away  ! 
How  a  sound  shall  quicken  content  to  bliss. 

Or  a  breath  suspend  the  blood's  best  play. 
And  life  be  a  proof  of  this ! 

There  are  many  such  miniatures  of  Nature  in 
Browning's  poetry.  Sometimes,  however,  the  pic- 
tures are  larger  and  nobler,  when  the  natural  thing 
described  is  in  itself  charged  with  power,  terror,  or 


8o  BROWNING 

dignity.  I  give  one  instance  of  this,  where  the 
fierce  Italian  thunderstorm  is  enhanced  by  being 
the  messenger  of  God's  vengeance  on  guilt.  It  is 
from  Pippa  Passes.  The  heaven's  pillars  are  over- 
bowed  with  heat.  The  black-blue  canopy  descends 
close  on  Ottima  and  Sebald. 

Buried  in  woods  we  lay,  you  recollect ; 
Swift  ran  the  searching  tempest  overhead  ; 
And  ever  and  anon  some  bright  white  shaft 
Burned  thro'  the  pine-tree  roof,  here  burned  and  there, 
As  if  God's  messenger  thro'  the  close  wood-screen 
Plunged  and  replunged  his  weapon  at  a  venture, 
Feeling  for  guilty  thee  and  me  ;  then  broke 
The  thunder  like  a  whole  sea  overhead  — 

That  is  as  splendid  as  the  thing  itself. 

Again,  no  one  can  help  observing  in  all  these 
quotations  the  extraordinary  love  of  colour,  a  love 
Tennyson  has  in  far  fainter  measure,  but  which 
Browning  seems  to  possess  more  than  any  other 
English  poet.  Only  Sir  Walter  Scott  approaches 
him  in  this.  Scott,  knowing  the  Highlands,  knew 
dark  magnificence  of  colour.  But  Browning's 
love  of  colour  arose  from  his  having  lived  so 
long  in  Italy,  where  the  Hght  is  so  pure,  clear, 
and  brilliant  that  colour  is  more  intense,  and  at 
dawn  and  sunset  more  deep,  delicate,  and  various 
than  it  is  in  our  land.  Sometimes,  as  Ruskin  says, 
"  it  is  not  colour,  it  is  conflagration  "  ;  but  wherever 
it  is,  in  the  bell  of  a  flower,  on  the  edge  of  a  cloud, 
on  the  back  of  a  lizard,  on  the  veins  of  a  Hchen,  it 
strikes  in  Browning's  verse  at  our  eyes,  and  he 
only,  in  Enghsh  poetry,  has  joy  enough  in  it  to  be 
its  full  interpreter. 

He  sees  the  wild  tuUp  blow  out  its  great  red 


THE  TREATMEIVT  OF  NATURE  8i 

bell ;  he  sees  the  thin  clear  bubble  of  blood  at  its 
tip  ;  he  sees  the  spike  of  gold  which  burns  deep  in 
the  bluebell's  womb ;  the  corals  that,  like  lamps, 
disperse  thick  red  flame  through  the  dusk  green 
universe  of  the  ocean ;  the  lakes  which,  when  the 
morn  breaks, 

Blaze  like  a  wyvern  flying  round  the  sun ; 

the  woodland  brake  whose  withered  fern  Dawn 
feeds  with  gold ;  the  moon  carried  off  at  sunrise 
in  purple  fire ;  the  larch-blooms  crisp  and  pink ;  the 
sanguine  heart  of  the  pomegranate  ;  the  filberts  rus- 
set-sheathed and  velvet-capped;  the  poppies  crimson 
to  blackness  ;  the  red  fans  of  the  butterfly  falling  on 
the  rock  like  a  drop  of  fire  from  a  brandished  torch  ; 
the  star-fish,  rose-jacynth  to  the  finger-tips;  and  a 
hundred  other  passionate  seizures  of  colour.  And, 
for  the  last  of  these  colour  remembrances,  in  quieter 
tints — almost  in  black  and  white — I  quote  this  lovely 
\&rsQ  iroTH  James  Lee's  Wife: 

The  swallow  has  set  her  six  young  on  the  rail, 

And  looks  seaward : 
The  water's  in  stripes  like  a  snake,  olive  pale 
To  the  leeward,  — 
On  the  weather-side,  black,  spotted  white  with  the  wind. 

"Good  fortune  departs,  and  disaster's  behind"  — 
Hark,  the  wind  with  its  wants  and  its  infinite  wail ! 

So,  not  only  do  we  possess  all  these  landscapes, 
but  we  possess  them  in  colour.  They  are  painted 
as  well  as  drawn.  It  is  his  love  of  colour  which 
made  at  least  half  of  the  impulse  that  drove  him 
at  times  into  Impressionism.  Good  drawing  is 
little  to  the  impressionist  painters.  It  is  the  sudden 
glow,  splash,  or  flicker  of  colour  that  moves  them. 


82  BROWNING 

which  makes  on  them  the  swift,  the  momentary 
impression  they  wish  to  record. 

And  colour  acted  on  Browning  in  the  same  way. 
I  said  he  had  been  impressionist,  when  he  hked, 
for  forty  years  before  Impressionism  was  born  in 
modern  art.  He  was  so,  because  from  the  begin- 
ning he  saw  things  in  colour,  more  than  in  Hght 
and  shade.  It  is  well  worth  a  reader's  while  to 
search  him  for  colour-impressions.  I  take  one, 
for  example,  with  the  black  horse  flung  in  at  the 
end  exactly  in  the  way  an  artist  would  do  it  who 
loved  a  flash  of  black  life  midst  of  a  dead  expanse 
of  gold  and  green  : 

Fancy  the  Pampas'  sheen! 

Miles  and  miles  of  gold  and  green 

Where  the  sunflowers  blow 

In  a  solid  glow, 
And  —  to  break  now  and  then  the  screen  — 

Black  neck  and  eyeballs  keen, 
Up  a  wild  horse  leaps  between  ! 

Having,  then,  this  extraordinary  power  of  sight, 
needing  no  carefulness  of  observation  or  study,  but 
capable  of  catching  and  holding  without  trouble  all 
that  his  eye  rested  or  glanced  upon,  it  is  no  wonder 
that  sometimes  it  amused  him  to  put  into  verse  the 
doings  of  a  whole  day  ;  the  work  done  in  it  by  men 
of  all  classes  and  the  natural  objects  that  encom- 
passed them  ;  not  cataloguing  them  dryly,  but  shoot- 
ing through  them,  like  rays  of  light,  either  his  own 
fancies  and  thoughts,  or  the  fancies  and  thoughts 
of  some  typical  character  whom  he  invented.  This  he 
has  done  specially  in  two  poems  :  TJie  E7iglisJiman 
in  Italy,  where  the  vast  shell  of  the  Sorrento  plain, 
its  sea  and  mountains,  and  all  the  doings  of  the 


THE  TREATMENT  OF  NATURE  83 

peasantry,  are  detailed  with  the  most  intimate  delight 
and  truth.  The  second  of  these  poems  is  Up  at 
a  Villa — Down  in  the  City,  where  a  farm  of  the 
Casentino  with  its  surroundings  is  contrasted  with 
the  street-life  of  Florence;  and  both  are  described 
through  the  deHghtful  character  whom  he  invents 
to  see  them.  These  poems  are  astonishing  pieces 
of  intimate,  joyful  observation  of  scenery. 

Again,  there  is  no  poet  whose  love  of  animals 
is  greater  than  Browning's,  and  none  who  has  so 
frequently,  so  carefully,  so  vividly  described  them. 
It  is  amazing,  as  we  go  through  his  work,  to  realise 
the  largeness  of  his  range  in  this  matter,  from  the 
river-horse  to  the  lizard,  from  the  eagle  to  the  wren, 
from  the  loud  singing  bee  to  the  filmy  insect  in  the 
sunshine.  I  give  a  few  examples.  Mortal  man 
could  not  see  a  lynx  more  clearly  than  Karshish  — 

A  black  lynx  snarled  and  pricked  a  tufted  ear ; 
Lust  of  my  blood  inflamed  his  yellow  balls. 

And  the  very  soul  of  the  Eagle  is  in  this 
question  — 

Ask  the  geier-eagle  why  she  stoops  at  once 
Into  the  vast  and  unexplored  abyss. 
What  full-grown  power  informs  her  from  the  first, 
Why  she  not  marvels,  strenuously  beating 
The  silent  boundless  regions  of  the  sky  ! 

He  has  watched  the  heavy-winged  osprey  in  its 
haunts,  fain  to  f^y, 

but  forced  the  earth  his  couch  to  make 
Far  inland,  till  his  friend  the  tempest  wake, 

on  whose  fiercer  wings  he  can  flap  his  own  into 
activity. 

In  Caliban  t{p07i  Setebos,  as  would  naturally  be  the 


84  BROWNING 

case,  animal  life  is  everywhere ;  and  how  close  to 
truth,  how  keenly  observed  it  is,  how  the  right  points 
for  description  are  chosen  to  make  us  feel  the  beast 
and  bird  in  a  single  line ;  how  full  of  colour,  how 
flashed  into  words  which  seem  like  colours,  the 
descriptions  are,  any  animal-lover  may  hear  in  the 
few  lines  I  quote  : 

Yon  otter,  sleek-wet,  black,  lithe  as  a  leech  ; 

Yon  auk,  one  fire-eye  in  a  ball  of  foam, 

That  floats  and  feeds  ;  a  certain  badger  brown 

He  hath  watched  hunt  with  that  slant  white-wedge  eye, 

By  moonlight. 

That  is  enough  to  prove  his  power.  And  the 
animals  are  seen,  not  as  a  cultured  person  sees 
them,  but  as  a  savage,  with  his  eyes  untroubled  by 
thoughts,  sees  them  ;  for  Browning,  with  his  curious 
self-transmuting  power,  has  put  himself  into  the 
skin  of  Caliban.  Then  again,  in  that  lovely  lyric 
in  Paracelsus y 

Thus  the  Mayne  glideth, 

the  banks  and  waves  are  full  of  all  the  bird  and 
beast  life  of  a  river.  Elsewhere,  he  sees  the  falcon 
spread  his  wings  like  a  banner,  the  stork  clapping 
his  bill  in  the  marsh,  the  coot  dipping  his  blue 
breast  in  the  water,  the  swallow  flying  to  Venice 
—  "that  stout  sea-farer  "  — the  lark  shivering  for 
joy,  and  a  hundred  other  birds  ;  and  lastly,  even  the 
great  bird  of  the  Imagination,  the  Phoenix,  flying 
home ;  and  in  a  splendid  verse  records  the  sight : 

As  the  King-bird  with  ages  on  his  plumes 
Travels  to  die  in  his  ancestral  glooms. 

Not  less  wonderful,  and  more  unique  in  English 
poetry,  is  his  painting  of  insects.     He  describes  the 


THE   TREATMENT  OF  NATURE  85 

hermit-bee,  the  soft,  small,  unfrighted  thing,  light- 
ing on  the  dead  vine-leaf,  and  twirling  and  filing 
all   day.     He    strikes   out    the   grasshopper   at  a 

touch  — 

Chirrups  the  contumacious  grasshopper. 

He  has  a  swift  vision  of  the  azure  damsel-fly  flitter- 
ing in  the  wood : 

Child  of  the  simmering  quiet,  there  to  die. 

He  sees  all  the  insect  population  of  an  old  green 
wall;  fancies  the  fancies  of  the  crickets  and  the 
flies,  and  the  carousing  of  the  cicala  in  the  trees, 
and  the  bee  swinging  in  the  chalice  of  the  cam- 
panula, and  the  wasps  pricking  the  papers  round 
the  peaches,  and  the  gnats  and  early  moths  craving 
their  food  from  God  when  dawn  awakes  them,  and 
the  fireflies  crawHng  Hke  lamps  through  the  moss, 
and  the  spider,  sprinkled  with  mottles  on  an  ash- 
grey  back,  and  building  his  web  on  the  edge  of 
tombs.  These  are  but  a  few  things  out  of  this 
treasure-house  of  animal  observation  and  love.  It 
is  a  love  which  animates  and  populates  with  Hfe 
his  landscapes. 

Many  of  the  points  I  have  attempted  here  to 
make  are  illustrated  in  Said.  In  verse  v.  the 
sheep  are  pictured,  with  all  a  shepherd's  deUghtful 
affection,  coming  back  at  evening  to  the  folding ; 
and,  with  David's  poetic  imagination,  compared  to 
the  stars  following  one  another  into  the  meadows 
of  night  — 

And  now  one  after  one  seeks  his  lodging,  as  star  follows  star 
Into  eve  and  the  blue  far  above  us,  —  so  blue  and  so  far  !  — 

In  verse  vi.  the  quails,  and  the  crickets,  and  the 


86  BROWNING 

jerboa  at  the  door  of  his  sand  house,  are  thrilled  into 
quicker  Hfe  by  David's  music.  In  verse  ix.  the 
full  joy  of  living  in  beasts  and  men  is  painted  in 
the  midst  of  landscape  after  landscape,  struck  out 
in  single  Hnes,  —  till  all  Nature  seems  crowded  and 
simmering  with  the  intense  life  whose  rapture 
Browning  loved  so  well.  These  fully  reveal  his 
poetic  communion  with  animals.  Then,  there  is  a 
fine  passage  in  verse  x.  where  he  describes  the 
loosening  of  a  thick  bed  of  snow  from  the 
mountain-side  *  —  an  occurrence  which  also  drew 
the  interest  of  Shelley  in  the  Pivjnethetis  —  which 
illustrates  what  I  have  said  of  Browning's  con- 
ception of  the  separate  life,  as  of  giant  Titans,  of 
the  vaster  things  in  Nature.  The  mountain  is  alive 
and  lives  his  life  with  his  own  grim  joy,  and 
wears  his  snow  like  a  breastplate,  and  discharges 
it  when  it  pleases  him.  It  is  only  David  who 
thinks  that  the  great  creature  lives  to  guard  us 
from  the  tempests.  And  Hebron,  high  on  its 
crested  hill,  Hfts  itself  out  of  the  morning  mist  in 
the  same  giant  fashion, 

For  I  wake  in  the  grey  dewy  covert,  while  Hebron  upheaves 
The  dawn  struggling  with  night  on  his  shoulder,  and  Kidron 

retrieves 
Slow  the  damage  of  yesterday's  sunshine. 

Then,  at  the  end  of  the  poem,  Browning  repre- 
sents all  Nature  as  full  of  emotion,  as  gathered  into 
a  fuller  life,  by  David's  prophecy  of  the  coming  of 

*  David  could  only  have  seen  this  on  the  upper  slopes  of 
Hermon.  But  at  the  time  of  the  poem,  when  he  is  the  shepherd- 
youth,  he  could  scarcely  have  visited  the  north  of  Palestine. 
Indeed,  he  does  not  seem  all  his  life  long  to  have  been  near 
Hermon.  Browning  has  transferred  to  David  what  he  himself 
had  seen  in  Switzerland. 


THE   TREATMENT  OF  NATURE  87 

immortal  Love  in  Christ  to  man.  This  sympathy 
of  Nature  with  humanity  is  so  rare  a  thought  in 
Browning,  and  so  apart  from  his  view  of  her,  that 
I  think  he  felt  its  strangeness  here ;  so  that  he 
has  taken  some  pains  to  make  us  understand  that 
it  is  not  Nature  herself  who  does  this,  but  David, 
in  his  uplifted  inspiration,  who  imputes  it  to  her. 
If  that  is  not  the  case,  it  is  at  least  interesting  to 
find  the  poet,  impassioned  by  his  imagination  of 
the  situation,  driven  beyond  his  usual  view  into 
another  land  of  thought. 

There  is  one  more  thing  to  say  in  closing 
this  chapter.  Browning,  unHke  Tennyson,  did 
not  invent  his  landscapes.  He  drew  directly 
from  Nature.  The  landscapes  in  Pauline  and 
Sordello,  and  in  the  lyrical  poems  are  plainly  recol- 
lections of  what  he  has  seen  and  noted  in  his 
memory,  from  the  sweep  of  the  mountainous  or 
oceanic  horizon  to  the  lichen  on  the  rock  and  the 
painted  shell  on  the  seashore.  Even  the  imagina- 
tive landscape  of  CJiilde  Roland  is  a  memory,  not 
an  invention.  I  do  not  say  he  would  have  been 
incapable  of  such  invented  landscape  as  we  find  in 
Qinone  and  the  Lotos-Eaters,  but  it  was  not  his  way 
to  do  this.  However,  he  does  it  once ;  but  he 
takes  care  to  show  that  it  is  not  real  landscape  he 
is  drawing,  but  landscape  in  a  picture.  In  Gerard 
de  Lairesse,  one  of  the  poems  in  Parleyings  with 
Certain  People,  he  sets  himself  to  rival  the  *'  Walk  " 
in  Lairesse's  Art  of  Paintifig,  and  he  invents  as  a 
background  to  mythological  or  historic  scenes,  five 
landscapes,  of  dawn,  morning,  and  noon,  evening, 
and  falling  night.  They  may  be  compared  with 
the  walk  in  Pauline^  and  indeed  one  of  them  with 


88  BROWNING 

its  deep  pool  watched  over  by  the  trees  recalls  his 
description  of  a  similar  pool  in  Pauline  —  a  lasting 
impression  of  his  youth,  for  it  is  again  used  in 
Sordello.  These  landscapes  are  some  of  his  most 
careful  natural  description.  They  begin  with  the 
great  thunderstorm  of  dawn  in  which  Prometheus  is 
seen  riveted  to  his  rock  and  the  eagle-hound  of  Zeus 
beside  him.  Then  the  morning  is  described  and  the 
awakening  of  the  earth  and  Artemis  going  forth, 
the  huntress-queen  and  the  queen  of  death ;  then 
noon  with  Lyda  and  the  Satyr  —  that  sad  story; 
then  evening  charged  with  the  fate  of  empires  ;  and 
then  the  night,  and  in  it  a  vast  ghost,  the  ghost  of 
departing  glory  and  beauty.  The  descriptions  are 
too  long  to  quote,  but  far  too  short  to  read.  I 
would  that  Browning  had  done  more  of  this  excellent 
work ;  but  that  these  were  created  when  he  was  an 
old  man  proves  that  the  fire  of  imagination  burnt  in 
him  to  the  end.  They  are  full  of  those  keen  picture- 
words  in  which  he  smites  into  expression  the  central 
point  of  a  landscape.  They  realise  the  glory  of  light, 
the  force,  fierceness,  even  the  quiet  of  Nature,  but 
they  have  lost  a  great  deal  of  the  colour  of  which 
once  he  was  so  lavish.  Nevertheless,  the  whole 
scheme  of  colour  in  these  pictures,  with  their  fig- 
ures, recalls  the  pictures  of  Tintoret.  They  have 
his  furia,  his  black,  gold,  and  sombre  purple,  his 
white  mist  and  barred  clouds  and  the  thunder-roar 
in  his  skies.  Nor  are  Prometheus  and  Artemis, 
and  Lyda  on  her  heap  of  skins  in  the  deep  woods, 
unworthy  of  the  daring  hand  of  the  great  Venetian. 
They  seem  to  stand  forth  from  his  canvas. 

The  poem  closes  with  a  charming  lyric,  half-sad, 
half  joyful,  in  which  he  hails  the  spring,  and  which 


THE  TREATMENT  OF  NATURE  89 

in  itself  is  full  of  his  heart  when  it  was  close  to  the 
hopefulness  he  drew  from  natural  beauty.  I  quote 
it  to  close  this  chapter  : 

Dance,  yellows  and  whites  and  reds, 
Lead  your  gay  orgy,  leaves,  stalks,  heads 
Astir  with  the  wind  in  the  tuHp-beds! 

There's  sunshine  ;  scarcely  a  wind  at  all 
Disturbs  starved  grass  and  daisies  small 
On  a  certain  mound  by  a  churchyard  wall. 

Daisies  and  grass  be  my  heart's  bed-fellows, 

On  the  mound  wind  spares  and  sunshine  mellows : 

Dance  you,  reds  and  whites  and  yellows ! 


CHAPTER   III 

THE  TREATMENT  OF  NATURE 

IN  the  previous  chapter,  some  of  the  statements 
made  on  Browning  as  a  poet  of  Nature  were 
not  sufficiently  illustrated;  and  there  are  other 
elements  in  his  natural  description  which  demand 
attention.  The  best  way  to  repair  these  deficiencies 
will  be  to  take  chronologically  the  natural  descrip- 
tions in  his  poems  and  to  comment  upon  them, 
leaving  out  those  on  which  we  have  already  touched. 
New  points  of  interest  will  thus  arise ;  and,  more- 
over, taking  his  natural  description  as  it  occurs  from 
volume  to  volume,  we  may  be  able  —  within  this 
phase  of  his  poetic  nature  —  to  place  his  poetic 
development  in  a  clearer  light. 

I  begin,  therefore,  with  Pauline.  The  descriptions 
of  nature  in  that  poem  are  more  deliberate,  more 
for  their  own  sake,  than  elsewhere  in  Browning's 
poetry.  The  first  of  them  faintly  recalls  the  manner 
of  Shelley  in  the  Aiastor,  and  I  have  no  doubt  was 
influenced  by  him.  The  two  others,  and  the  more 
finished,  have  already  escaped  from  Shelley,  and  are 
almost  pre-Raphaelite,  as  much  so  as  Keats,  in  their 
detail.  Yet  all  the  three  are  original,  not  imitative. 
They  suggest' Shelley  and  Keats,  and  no  more,  and 
it  is  only  the  manner  and  not  the  matter  of  these 

90 


THE  TREATMENT  OF  NATURE  91 

poets  that  they  suggest.  Browning  became  in- 
stantly original  in  this  as  in  other  modes  of  poetry. 
It  was  characteristic  of  him  from  the  beginning  to 
the  end  of  his  career,  to  possess  within  himself 
his  own  methods,  to  draw  out  of  himself  new  matter 
and  new  shapings. 

From  one  point  of  view  this  was  full  of  treasure- 
able  matter  for  us.  It  is  not  often  the  gods  give  us 
so  opulent  an  originaHty.  From  another  point  of 
view  it  was  unfortunate.  If  he  had  begun  by 
imitating  a  little ;  if  he  had  studied  the  excellences 
of  his  predecessors  more ;  if  he  had  curbed  his  in- 
dividuality sufficiently  to  mark,  learn,  and  inwardly 
digest  the  noble  style  of  others  in  natural  description, 
and  in  all  other  matters  of  poetry  as  well,  his  work 
would  have  been  much  better  than  it  is  ;  his  original 
excellences  would  have  found  fitter  and  finer  expres- 
sion ;  his  faults  would  have  been  enfeebled  instead 
of  being  developed ;  his  style  would  have  been  more 
concise  on  one  side,  less  abrupt  on  another,  and  we 
should  not  have  been  wrongly  disturbed  by  obscu- 
rities of  diction  and  angularities  of  expression.  He 
would  have  reached  more  continuously  the  splendid 
level  he  often  attained.  This  is  plentifully  illustrated 
by  his  work  on  external  nature,  but  less  perhaps 
than  by  his  work  on  humanity. 

The  first  natural  description  he  published  is  in 
the  beginning  of  Pauline  : 

Thou  wilt  remember  one  warm  morn  when  winter 
Crept  aged  from  the  earth,  and  spring's  first  breath 
Blew  soft  from  the  moist  hills  ;  the  blackthorn  boughs, 
So  dark  in  the  bare  wood,  when  glistening 
In  the  sunshine  were  white  with  coming  buds, 
Like  the  bright  side  of  a  sorrow,  and  the  banks     * 
Had  violets  opening  from  sleep  like  eyes. 


92  BROWNING 

That  is  fairly  good  ;  he  describes  what  he  has  seen ; 
but  it  mi2:ht  have  been  better.  We  know  what 
he  means,  but  his  words  do  not  accurately  or 
imaginatively  convey  this  meaning.  The  best  lines 
are  the  first  three,  but  the  peculiar  note  of  Shelley 
sighs  so  fully  in  them  that  they  do  not  represent 
Browning.  What  is  special  in  them  is  his  peculiar 
deUght  not  only  in  the  morning  which  here  he  cele- 
brates, but  in  the  spring.  It  was  in  his  nature,  even 
in  old  age,  to  love  with  passion  the  beginnings  of 
things  ;  dawn,  morning,  spring,  and  youth,  and  their 
quick  blood ;  their  changes,  impulses,  their  unpre- 
meditated rush  into  fresh  experiment.  Unlike 
Tennyson,  who  was  old  when  he  was  old,  Browning 
was  young  when  he  was  old.  Only  once  in  Asolaiido, 
in  one  poem,  can  we  trace  that  he  felt  winter  in  his 
heart.  And  the  Hnes  in  Pauline  which  I  now  quote, 
spoken  by  a  young  man  who  had  dramatised  himself 
into  momentary  age,  are  no  ill  description  of  his 
temper  at  times  when  he  was  really  old  : 

As  life  wanes,  all  its  care  and  strife  and  toil 
Seem  strangely  valueless,  while  the  old  trees 
Which  grew  by  our  youth's  home,  the  waving  mass 
Of  climbing  plants  heavy  with  bloom  and  dew, 
The  morning  swallows  with  their  songs  like  words, 
All  these  seem  clear  and  only  worth  our  thoughts : 
So,  aught  connected  with  my  early  life, 
My  rude  songs  or  my  wild  imaginings, 
How  I  look  on  them  —  most  distinct  amid 
The  fever  and  the  stir  of  after  years  ! 

The  next  description  in  Pauline  is  that  in  which 
he  describes  —  to  illustrate  what  Shelley  was  to  him 
—  the  woodland  spring  which  became  a  mighty  river. 
Shelley,  as  first  conceived  by  Browning,  seemed  to 
him  hke  a  sacred  spring  : 


THE   TREATMENT  OF  NATURE  93 

Scarce  worth  a  moth's  flitting,  which  long  grasses  cross, 

And  one  small  tree  embowers  droopingly  — 

Joying  to  see  some  wandering  insect  won 

To  live  in  its  few  rushes,  or  some  locust 

To  pasture  on  its  boughs,  or  some  wild  bird 

Stoop  for  its  freshness  from  the  trackless  air. 

A  piece  of  careful  detail,  close  to  Nature,  but  not 
close  enough ;  needing  to  be  more  detailed  or  less 
detailed,  but  the  first  instance  in  his  work  of  his 
deliberate  use  of  Nature,  not  for  love  of  herself  only 
(Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  or  Byron  would  have 
described  the  spring  in  the  woods  for  its  own  sake), 
but  for  illustration  of  humanity.  It  is  Shelley  — 
Shelley  in  his  lonely  withdrawn  character,  Shelley 
hidden  in  the  wood  of  his  own  thoughts,  and,  like 
a  spring  in  that  wood,  bubbling  upwards  into  per- 
sonal poetry  —  of  whom  Browning  is  now  thinking. 
The  image  is  good,  but  a  better  poet  would  have 
dwelt  more  on  the  fountain  and  left  the  insects  and 
birds  alone.  It  is  Shelley  also  of  whom  he  thinks 
—  Shelley  breaking  away  from  personal  poetry  to 
write  of  the  fates  of  men,  of  liberty  and  love  and 
overthrow  of  wrong,  of  the  future  of  mankind  — 
when  he  expands  his  tree-shaded  fountain  into  the 
river  and  follows  it  to  the  sea : 

And  then  should  find  it  but  the  fountain  head, 
Long  lost,  of  some  great  river  washing  towns 
And  towers,  and  seeing  old  woods  which  will  live 
But  by  its  banks  untrod  of  human  foot, 
Which,  when  the  great  sun  sinks,  lie  quivering 
In  light  as  something  lieth  half  of  life 
Before  God's  foot,  waiting  a  wondrous  change ; 
Then  girt  with  rocks  which  seek  to  turn  or  stay 
Its  course  in  vain,  for  it  does  ever  spread 
Like  a  sea's  arm  as  it  goes  rolhng  on, 
Being  the  pulse  of  some  great  country  —  so 
Wast  thou  to  me,  and  art  thou  to  the  world ! 


94  BROWNING 

How  good  some  of  that  is ;  how  bad  it  is  else- 
where !  How  much  it  needs  thought,  concentra- 
tion, and  yet  how  vivid  also  and  original !  And 
the  faults  of  it,  of  grammar,  of  want  of  clearness,  of 
irritating  parenthesis,  of  broken  threads  of  thought, 
of  inabihty  to  leave  out  the  needless,  are  faults  of 
which  Browning  never  quite  cleared  his  work.  I  do 
not  think  he  ever  cared  to  rid  himself  of  them. 

The  next  description  is  not  an  illustration  of  man 
by  means  of  Nature.  It  is  almost  the  only  set 
description  of  Nature,  without  reference  to  man, 
which  occurs  in  the  whole  of  Browning's  work.  It 
is  introduced  by  his  declaration  (for  in  this  I  think 
he  speaks  from  himself)  of  his  power  of  living  in 
the  hfe  of  all  living  things.  He  does  not  think  of 
himself  as  living  in  the  whole  Being  of  Nature,  as 
Wordsworth  or  Shelley  might  have  done.  There 
was  a  certain  matter-of-factness  in  him  which  pre- 
vented his  belief  in  any  theory  of  that  kind.  But 
he  does  transfer  himself  into  the  rejoicing  life  of  the 
animals  and  plants,  a  life  which  he  knows  is  akin 
to  his  own.  And  this  distinction  is  true  of  all  his 
poetry  of  Nature.  "  I  can  mount  with  the  bird," 
he  says, 

Leaping  airily  his  pyramid  of  leaves 
And  twisted  boughs  of  some  tall  mountain  tree, 
Or  like  a  fish  breathe  deep  tlie  morning  air 
In  the  misty  sun-warm  water. 

This  introduces  the  description  of  a  walk  of 
twenty-four  hours  through  various  scenes  of 
natural  beauty.  It  is  long  and  elaborate  —  the 
scenery  he  conceives  round  the  home  where  he 
and  Pauline  are  to  live.  And  it  is  so  close,  and  so 
much  of  it  is  repeated  in  other  forms  in  his  later 


THE   TREATMENT  OF  NATURE  95 

poetry,  that  I  think  it  is  drawn  direct  from  Nature ; 
that  it  is  here  done  of  set  purpose  to  show  his 
hand  in  natural  description.  It  begins  with  night, 
but  soon  leaves  night  for  the  morning  and  the 
noon.     Here  is  a  piece  of  it : 

Morning,  the  rocks  and  valleys  and  old  woods. 
How  the  sun  brightens  in  the  mist,  and  here, 
Half  in  the  air,  like  *  creatures  of  the  place. 
Trusting  the  elements,  living  on  high  boughs 
That  sway  in  the  wind  —  look  at  the  silver  spray 
Flung  from  the  foam-sheet  of  the  cataract 
Amid  the  broken  rocks  !     Shall  we  stay  here 
With  the  wild  hawks  ?     No,  ere  the  hot  noon  come 
Dive  we  down  —  safe !     See,  this  is  our  new  retreat 
Walled  in  with  a  sloped  mound  of  matted  shrubs, 
Dark,  tangled,  old,  and  green,  still  sloping  down 
To  a  small  pool  whose  waters  lie  asleep, 
Amid  the  trailing  boughs  turned  water-plants : 
And  tall  trees  overarch  to  keep  us  in. 
Breaking  the  sunbeams  into  emerald  shafts, 
And  in  the  dreamy  water  one  small  group 
Of  two  or  three  strange  trees  are  got  together 
Wondering  at  all  around  — 

This  is  nerveless  work,  tentative,  talkative,  no 
clear  expression  of  the  whole ;  and  as  he  tries  to 
expand  it  further  in  lines  we  may  study  with 
interest,  for  the  very  failures  of  genius  are 
interesting,  he  becomes  even  more  feeble.  Yet  the 
feebleness  is  traversed  by  verses  of  power,  like 
lightning  flashing  through  a  mist  upon  the  sea. 
The  chief  thing  to  say  about  this  direct,  detailed 
work  is  that  he  got  out  of  its  manner  as  fast  as  he 
could.  He  never  tried  it  again,  but  passed  on  to 
suggest  the  landscape  by  a  few  sharp,  high-coloured 
words  ;  choosing  out  one  or  two  of  its  elements  and 

*  Creatures  accordant  with  the  place  ? 


96  BROWNING 

flashing  them  into  prominence.     The  rest  was  left 
to  the  imagination  of  the  reader. 

He  is  better  when  he  comes  forth  from  the 
shadowy  woodland-pool  into  the  clear  air  and  open 
landscape : 

Up  for  the  glowing  day,  leave  the  old  woods  ! 
See,  they  part  Hke  a  ruined  arch :  the  sky  ! 
Blue  sunny  air,  where  a  great  cloud  floats  laden 
With  light,  like  a  dead  whale  that  white  birds  pick, 
Floating  away  in  the  sun  in  some  north  sea. 
Air,  air,  fresh  life-blood,  thin  and  searching  air, 
The  clear,  dear  breath  of  God  that  loveth  us, 
Where  small  birds  reel  and  winds  take  their  delight ! 

The  last  three  lines  are  excellent,  but  nothing 
could  be  worse  than  the  sensational  image  of  the 
dead  whale.  It  does  not  fit  the  thing  he  desires 
to  illustrate,  and  it  violates  the  sentiment  of  the 
scene  he  is  describing,  but  its  strangeness  pleased  his 
imagination,  and  he  put  it  in  without  a  question. 
Alas,  in  after  times,  he  only  too  often,  both  in  the 
poetry  of  Nature  and  of  the  human  soul,  hurried 
into  his  verse  illustrations  which  had  no  natural 
relation  to  the  matter  in  hand,  just  because  it 
amused  him  to  indulge  his  fancy.  The  finished 
artist  could  not  do  this  ;  he  would  hear,  as  it  were, 
the  false  note,  and  reject  it.  But  Browning,  a 
natural  artist,  never  became  a  perfect  one.  Never- 
theless, as  his  poetry  went  on,  he  reached,  by 
natural  power,  splendid  description,  as  indeed  I 
have  fully  confessed  ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  one  is 
never  sure  of  him.     He  is  never  quite  *'  inevitable." 

The  attempt  at  deliberate  natural  description 
in  Pauline,  of  which  I  have  now  spoken,  is  not 
renewed  in  Paracelsus.     By  the  time  he  wrote  that 


THE  TREATMENT  OF  NATURE  97 

poem  the  movement  and  problem  of  the  spirit  of 
man  had  all  but  quenched  his  interest  in  natural 
scenery.  Nature  is  only  introduced  as  a  back- 
ground, almost  a  scenic  background  for  the 
players,  who  are  the  passions,  thoughts,  and 
aspirations  of  the  intellectual  life  of  Paracelsus. 
It  is  only  at  the  beginning  of  Part  II.  that  we 
touch  a  landscape  : 

Over  the  waters  in  the  vaporous  West 
The  sun  goes  down  as  in  a  sphere  of  gold 
Behind  the  arm  of  the  city,  which  between, 
With  all  the  length  of  domes  and  minarets, 
Athwart  the  splendour,  black  and  crooked  runs 
Like  a  Turk  verse  along  a  scimitar. 

That  is  all ;  nothing  but  an  introduction.  Para- 
celsus turns  in  a  moment  from  the  sight,  and 
absorbs  himself  in  himself,  just  as  Browning  was 
then  doing  in  his  own  soul.  Nearly  two  thousand 
lines  are  then  written  before  Nature  is  again 
touched  upon,  and  then  Festus  and  Paracelsus  are 
looking  at  the  dawn ;  and  it  is  worth  saying  how 
in  this  description  Browning's  work  on  Nature  has 
so  greatly  improved  that  one  can  scarcely  believe 
he  is  the  same  poet  who  wrote  the  wavering  descrip- 
tions of  Pauline.     This  is  close  and  clear : 

Morn  must  be  near. 

Festus.  Best  ope  the  casement  :  see, 

The  night,  late  strewn  with  clouds  and  flying  stars, 
Is  blank  and  motionless  :  how  peaceful  sleep 
The  tree-tops  all  together  !     Like  an  asp  ^ 
The  wind  slips  whispering  from  bough  to  bough. 

1  Browning,  even   more   than   Shelley,   was  fond   of  using   the 
snake  in  his  poetry.     Italy  is  in  that  habit. 
H 


98  BROWNING 

Paracelsus.     See,  morn  at  length.     The  heavy  dark- 
ness seems 
Dikited,  grey  and  clear  without  the  stars  ; 
The  shrubs  bestir  and  rouse  themselves  as  if 
Some  snake,  that  weighed  them  down  all  night,  let  go 
His  hold  ;  and  from  the  East,  fuller  and  fuller. 
Day,  like  a  mighty  river,  flowing  in  ; 
But  clouded,  wintry,  desolate,  and  cold. 

That  is  good,  clear,  and  sufficient;  and  there  the 
description  should  end.  But  Browning,  driven  by 
some  small  demon,  adds  to  it  three  lines  of  mere 
observant  fancy. 

Yet  see  how  that  broad  prickly  star-shaped  plant. 
Half-down  in  the  crevice,  spreads  its  woolly  leaves, 
All  thick  and  glistening  with  diamond  dew. 

What  is  that  for  }  To  give  local  colour  or  reality  .-* 
It  does  neither.  It  is  mere  childish  artistry.  Ten- 
nyson could  not  have  done  it.  He  knew  when  to 
stay  his  hand.* 

The  finest  piece  of  natural  description  in  Para- 

*  There  is  a  fine  picture  of  the  passing  of  a  hurricane  in 
Paracelsus  (p.  67,  vol.  i.)  which  illustrates  this  inability  to  stop 
when  he  has  done  all  he  needs.     Paracelsus  speaks  : 

The  hurricane  is  spent, 
And  the  good  boat  speeds  through  the  brightening  weather; 
But  is  it  earth  or  sea  that  heaves  below  ? 
The  gulf  rolls  like  a  meadow-swell,  o'erstrewn 
"With  ravaged  boughs  and  remnants  of  the  shore; 
And  now,  some  islet,  loosened  from  the  land, 
Swims  past  with  all  its  trees,  sailing  to  ocean : 
And  now  the  air  is  full  of  uptorn  canes, 
Light  strippings  from  the  fan-trees,  tamarisks 
Unrooted,  with  their  birds  still  clinging  to  them. 
All  high  in  the  wind.     Even  so  my  varied  life 
Drifts  by  me. 

I  think  that  the  lines  I  have  italicised  should  have  been  left 
out.     They  weaken  what  he  has  well  done. 


THE  TREATMENT  OF  NATURE 


99 


celsus  is  of  the  coming  of  Spring.  It  is  full  of 
the  joy  of  life ;  it  is  inspired  by  a  passionate 
thought,  lying  behind  it,  concerning  man.  It  is 
still  more  inspired  by  his  belief  that  God  himself 
was  eternal  joy  and  filled  the  universe  with  rapture. 
Nowhere  did  Browning  reach  a  greater  height  in 
his  Nature  poetry  than  in  these  lines,  yet  they  are 
more  a  description,  as  usual,  of  animal  life  than  of 
the  beauty  of  the  earth  and  sea  : 

Then  all  is  still ;  earth  is  a  wintry  clod : 

But  spring-wind,  like  a  dancing  psaltress,  passes 

Over  its  breast  to  waken  it,  rare  verdure 

Buds  tenderly  upon  rough  banks,  between 

The  withered  tree-roots  and  the  cracks  of  frost, 

Like  a  smile  striving  with  a  wrinkled  face ; 

The  grass  grows  bright,  the  bows  are  swoln  with  blooms 

Like  chrysalids  impatient  for  the  air. 

The  shining  dorrs  are  busy,  beetles  run 

Along  the  furrows,  ants  make  their  ado  ; 

Above,  birds  fly  in  merry  flocks,  the  lark 

Soars  up  and  up,  shivering  for  very  joy  ; 

Afar  the  ocean  sleeps  ;  white  fishing-gulls 

Flit  where  the  strand  is  purple  with  its  tribe 

Of  nested  limpets  ;  savage  creatures  seek 

Their  loves  in  wood  and  plain  —  and  God  renews 

His  ancient  rapture. 

Once  more,  in  Paracelsus^  there  is  the  lovely 
lyric  about  the  flowing  of  the  Mayne.  I  have 
driven  through  that  gracious  country  of  low  hill  and 
dale  and  wide  water-meadows,  where  under  flowered 
banks  only  a  foot  high  the  slow  river  winds  in 
gentleness;  and  this  poem  is  steeped  in  the  sentiment 
of  the  scenery.  But,  as  before,  Browning  quickly 
slides  away  from  the  beauty  of  inanimate  nature 
into  a  record  of  the  animals  that  haunt  the  stream. 
He  could  not  get  on  long  with  mountains  and  rivers 


loo  BROWNING 

alone.    He  must  people  them  with  breathing,  feel- 
ing things  ;  anything  for  life  ! 

Thus  the  Mayne  ghdeth 
Where  my  Love  abideth. 
Sleep's  no  softer ;  it  proceeds 
On  through  lawns,  on  through  meads, 
On  and  on,  whatever  befall, 
Meandering  and  musical, 
Though  the  niggard  pasturage 
Bears  not  on  its  shaven  ledge 
Aught  but  weeds  and  waving  grasses 
To  view  the  river  as  it  passes, 
Save  here  and  there  a  scanty  patch 
Of  primroses  too  faint  to  catch 
A  weary  bee. 

And  scarce  it  pushes 
Its  gentle  way  through  strangling  rushes 
Where  the  glossy  kingfisher 
Flutters  when  noon-heats  are  near, 
Glad  the  shelving  banks  to  shun 
Red  and  steaming  in  the  sun. 
Where  the  shrew-mouse  with  pale  throat 
Burrows,  and  the  speckled  stoat ; 
Where  the  quick  sandpipers  flit 
In  and  out  the  marl  and  grit 
That  seems  to  breed  them,  brown  as  they : 
Naught  disturbs  its  quiet  way, 
Save  some  lazy  stork  that  springs, 
Trailing  it  with  legs  and  wings, 
Whom  the  shy  fox  from  the  hill 
Rouses,  creep  he  ne'er  so  still. 

**  My  heart,  they  loose  my  heart,  those  simple 
words,"  cries  Paracelsus,  and  he  was  right.  They 
tell  of  that  which  to  see  and  love  is  better,  wiser, 
than  to  probe  and  know  all  the  problems  of  know- 
ledge. But  that  is  a  truth  not  understood,  not 
believed.  And  few  there  be  who  find  it.  And  if 
Browning  had  found  the  secret  of  how  to  live  more 
outside  of  his  understanding  than  he  did,  or  having 


THE  TREATMENT  OF  NATURE  loi 

found  it,  had  not  forgotten  it,  he  would  not  perhaps 
have  spoken  more  wisely  for  the  good  of  man,  but 
he  would  have  more  continuously  written  better 

poetry. 

The  next  poem  in  which  he  may  be  said  to  touch 
Nature  is  Sordcllo.     Strafford  does  not  count,  save 
for  the  charming  song  of  the  boat  in  music  and 
moonUght,  which  the  children  sing.     In  Sordello, 
the  problem  of  life,  as  in  Paracelsus,  is  still  the 
chief  matter,  but  outward  Hfe,  as  not  in  Paracelsus, 
takes  an  equal  place  with  inward  life.     And  natur- 
ally. Nature,  its  changes  and  beauty,  being  outward, 
are  more  fully  treated  than  in  Paracelsus.     But  it 
is  never  treated  for  itself  alone.     It  is  made  to 
image  or  reflect  the  sentiment  of  the  man  who  sees 
it,  or  to  illustrate  a  phase  of  his  passion  or  his 
thought.     But  there  is  a  closer  grip  upon  it  than 
before,  a  clearer  definition,  a  greater  power  of  con- 
centrated expression  of  it,  and  especially,  a  fuller 
use  of  colour.     Browning  paints  Nature  now  like 
a  Venetian;    the  very  shadows  of  objects  are  in 
colour.     This  new  power  was  a  kind  of  revelation 
to  him,  and  he  frequently  uses  it  with  a  personal 
joy  in   its  exercise.     Things   in    Nature  blaze  in 
his  poetry  now  and  afterwards  in  gold,  purple,  the 
crimson  of  blood,   in    sunlit   green  and  topaz,   in 
radiant  blue,  in  dyes  of  earthquake  and  eclipse. 
Then,  when   he  has   done   his   landscape  thus  in 
colour,  he  adds  more ;  he  places  in  its  foreground 
one  drop,  one  eye  of  still  more  flaming  colour,  to 
vivify  and  inflame  the  whole. 

The  main  landscape  of  Sordello  is  the  plain  and 
the  low  pine-clad  hills  around  Mantua;  the  half- 
circle    of    the    deep    lagoon   which    enarms    the 


I02  BROWNING 

battlemented  town  ;  and  the  river  Mincio,  seen  by 
Sordello  when  he  comes  out  of  the  forest  on  the  hill, 
as  it  enters  and  leaves  the  lagoon,  and  winds,  a  silver 
ribbon,  through  the  plain.  It  is  the  landscape  Vergil 
must  have  loved.  A  long  bridge  of  more  than  a 
hundred  arches,  with  towers  of  defence,  crosses  the 
marsh  from  the  towered  gateway  of  the  walls  to  the 
mainland,  and  in  the  midst  of  the  lagoon  the  deep 
river  flows  fresh  and  clear  with  a  steady  swiftness. 
Scarcely  anywhere  in  North  Italy  is  the  upper  sky 
more  pure  at  dawn  and  even,  and  there  is  no  view 
now  so  mystic  in  its  desolation.  Over  the  lagoon, 
and  puffing  from  it,  the  mists,  daily  encrimsoned  by 
sunrise  and  sunset,  continually  rise  and  disperse. 

The  character  and  the  peculiarities  of  this  land- 
scape Browning  has  seized  and  enshrined  in  verse. 
But  his  descriptions  are  so  arranged  as  to  reflect 
certain  moments  of  crisis  in  the  soul  of  Sordello. 
He  does  not  describe  this  striking  landscape  for  its 
own  sake,  but  for  the  sake  of  his  human  subject. 
The  lines  I  quote  below  describe  noon-day  on  the 
lagoon,  seen  from  the  golden  woods  and  black  pines; 
and  the  vision  of  the  plain,  city,  and  river,  suddenly 
opening  out  from  the  wood,  symbolises  the  soul 
of  Sordello  opening  out  from  solitude  "  into  the 
veritable  business  of  mankind." 

Then  wide 
Opened  the  great  morass,  shot  every  side 
With  flashing  water  through  and  through  ;  a-shine, 
Thick-steaming,  all-alive.     Whose  shape  divine 
Quivered  i'  the  farthest  rainbow-vapour,  glanced 
Athwart  the  flying  herons  ?     He  advanced, 
But  warily ;  though  Mincio  leaped  no  more, 
Each  footfall  burst  up  in  the  marish-floor 
A  diamond  jet. 


THE  TREATMENT  OF  NATURE  103 

And  then  he  somewhat  spoils  this  excellent  thing 
by  a  piece  of  detail  too  minute  for  the  largeness  of 
the  impression.  But  how  clear  and  how  full  of  true 
sentiment  it  is ;  and  how  the  image  of  Palma  rain- 
bowed  in  the  mist,  and  of  Sordello  seeing  her,  fills 
the  landscape  with  youthful  passion ! 

Here  is  the  same  view  in  the  morning,  when 
Mincio  has  come  down  in  flood  and  filled  the  marsh  : 

Mincio,  in  its  place, 
Laughed,  a  broad  water,  in  next  morning's  face. 
And,  where  the  mists  broke  up  immense  and  white 
V  the  steady  wind,  burned  like  a  spilth  of  light 
Out  of  the  crashing  of  a  million  stars. 

It  were  well  to  compare  that  brilhant  piece  of 
light  with  the  grey  water-sunset  at  Ferrara  in  the 
beginning  of  the  VI.  Book. 

While  eve  slow  sank 
Down  the  near  terrace  to  the  farther  bank. 
And  only  one  spot  left  from  out  the  night 
Glimmered  upon  the  river  opposite  — 
A  breadth  of  watery  heaven  like  a  bay, 
A  sky-like  space  of  water,  ray  for  ray. 
And  star  for  star,  one  richness  where  they  mixed 
^         As  this  and  that  wing  of  an  angel,  fixed, 
Tumultuary  splendours  folded  in 
To  die. 

As  usual,  Spring  enchants  him.  The  second 
book  begins  with  her  coming,  and  predicates  the 
coming  change  in  Sordello's  soul. 

The  woods  were  long  austere  with  snow ;  at  last 
Pink  leaflets  budded  on  the  beech,  and  fast 
Larches,  scattered  through  pine-tree  solitudes, 
Brightened,  as  in  the  slumbrous  heart  of  the  woods 
Our  buried  year,  a  witch,  grew  young  again 
To  placid  incantations,  and  that  stain 
About  were  from  her  cauldron,  green  smoke  blent 
With  those  black  pines. 


104  BROWNING 

Nor  does  he  omit  in  Sordello  to  recall  two  other 
favourite  aspects  of  Nature,  long  since  recorded  in 
Pauline,  the  ravine  and  the  woodland  spring.  Just 
as  Turner  repeated  in  many  pictures  of  the  same 
place  what  he  had  first  observed  in  it,  so  Browning 
recalled  in  various  poems  the  first  impressions  of 
his  youth.  He  had  a  curious  love  for  a  ravine  with 
overhanging  trees  and  a  thin  thread  of  water,  loop- 
ing itself  round  rocks.  It  occurs  in  the  Fireside,  it 
is  taken  up  in  his  later  poems,  and  up  such  a  ravine 
Sordello  climbs  among  the  pines  of  Goito : 

He  climbed  with  (June  at  deep)  some  close  ravine 
Mid  clatter  of  its  million  pebbles  sheen, 
Over  which,  singing  soft,  the  runnel  slipped 
Elate  with  rains. 

Then,  in  So7'dello,  we  come  again  across  the  foun- 
tain in  the  grove  he  draws  in  Pauline,  now  greatly 
improved  in  clearness  and  word-brightness  —  a  real 
vision.     Fate  has  given  him  here  a  fount 

Of  pure  loquacious  pearl,  the  soft  tree-tent 
Guards,  with  its  face  of  reate  and  sedge,  nor  fail 
The  silver  globules  and  gold-sparkling  grail 
At  bottom  — 

where  the  impulse  of  the  water  sends  up  the  sand 
in  a  cone  —  a  solitary  loveliness  of  Nature  that 
Coleridge  and  Tennyson  have  both  drawn  with  a 
finer  pencil  than  Browning.  The  other  examples 
of  natural  description  in  Sordello,  as  well  as  those  in 
Balaustion  I  shall  reserve  till  I  speak  of  those  poems. 
As  to  the  dramas,  they  are  wholly  employed  with 
humanity.  In  them  man's  soul  has  so  overmastered 
Browning  that  they  are  scarcely  diversified  half-a- 
dozen  times  by  any  illustrations  derived  from 
Nature. 


THE  TREATMENT  OF  NATURE  105 

We  now  come,  with  The  Rvig  and  the  Book,  to  a 
clear  division  in  his  poetry  of  Nature.  From  this 
time  forth  Nature  decays  in  his  verse.  Man  masters 
it  and  drives  it  out.  In  TJie  Ring  and  the  Book,  huge 
as  it  is,  Nature  rarely  intrudes ;  the  human  passion 
of  the  matter  is  so  great  that  it  swallows  up  all 
Browning's  interest.  There  is  a  little  forky  flashing 
description  of  the  entrance  to  the  Val  d'Ema  in 
Guido's  first  statement.  Caponsacchi  is  too  in- 
tensely gathered  round  the  tragedy  to  use  a  single 
illustration  from  Nature.  The  only  person  who 
does  use  illustrations  from  Nature  is  the  only  one 
who  is  by  age,  by  his  life,  by  the  apartness  of  his 
high  place,  capable  of  sufficient  quiet  and  contem- 
plation to  think  of  Nature  at  all.     This  is  the  Pope. 

He  illustrates  with  great  vigour  the  way  in  which 
Guido  destroyed  all  the  home  life  which  clung  about 
him  and  himself  remained  dark  and  vile,  by  the 
burning  of  a  nest-like  hut  in  the  Campagna,  with 
all  its  vines  and  ivy  and  flowers ;  till  nothing 
remains  but  the  blackened  walls  of  the  mahcious 
tower  round  which  the  hut  had  been  built. 

He  illustrates  the  sudden  event  which,  breaking 
in  on  Caponsacchi's  life,  drew  out  of  him  his  latent 
power  and  his  inward  good,  by  this  vigorous 
description  : 

As  when  a  thundrous  midnight,  with  black  air 
That  burns,  rain-drops  that  blister,  breaks  a  spell, 
Draws  out  the  excessive  virtue  of  some  sheathed 
Shut  unsuspected  flower  that  hoards  and  hides 
Immensity  of  sweetness. 

And  the  last  illustration,  in  which  the  Pope  hopes 
that  Guido's  soul  may  yet  be  saved  by  the  sudden- 
ness of  his  death,  is  one  of  the  finest  pieces  of  natural 


io6  BROWNING 

description  in  Browning,  and  reads  like  one  of  his 
own  memories : 

I  stood  at  Naples  once,  a  night  so  dark 

I  could  have  scarce  conjectured  there  was  earth 

Anywhere,  sky  or  sea  or  world  at  all : 

But  the  night's  black  was  burst  through  by  a  blaze  — 

Thunder  struck  blow  on  blow,  earth  groaned  and  bore. 

Through  her  whole  length  of  mountain  visible : 

There  lay  the  city  thick  and  plain  with  spires, 

And,  like  a  ghost  disshrouded,  white  the  sea. 

So  may  the  truth  be  flashed  out  by  one  blow, 

And  Guido  see,  one  instant,  and  be  saved. 

After  The  Rmg  and  the  Book^  poor  Nature,  as 
one  of  Browning's  mistresses,  was  somewhat 
neglected  for  a  time,  and  he  gave  himself  up  to 
ugly  representations  of  what  was  odd  or  twisted  in 
humanity,  to  its  smaller  problems,  like  that  con- 
tained in  Fifine  at  the  Fair,  to  its  fantastic  impulses, 
its  strange  madnesses,  its  basenesses,  even  its 
commonplace  crimes.  These  subjects  were  redeemed 
by  his  steady  effort  to  show  that  underneath  these 
evil  developments  of  human  nature  lay  immortal 
good ;  and  that  a  wise  tolerance,  based  on  this 
underlying  godUkeness  in  man,  was  the  true  atti- 
tude of  the  soul  towards  the  false  and  the  stupid 
in  mankind.  This  had  been  his  attitude  from  the 
beginning.  It  differentiates  him  from  Tennyson, 
who  did  not  maintain  that  view;  and  at  that  point 
he  is  a  nobler  poet  than  Tennyson. 

But  he  became  too  much  absorbed  in  the  intel- 
lectual treatment  of  these  side-issues  in  human 
nature.  And  I  think  that  he  was  left  unprotected 
from  this  or  not  held  back  from  it  by  his  having 
almost  given  up  Nature  in  her  relation  to  man  as  a 
subject  for  his  poetry.     To  love  that  great,  solemn, 


THE   TREATMENT  OF  NATURE  107 

and  beautiful  Creature,  who  even  when  she  seems 
most  merciless  retains  her  glory  and  loveliness, 
keeps  us  from  thinking  too  much  on  the  lower 
problems  of  humanity,  on  its  ignobler  movements ; 
holds  before  us  infinite  grandeur,  infinite  beauty, 
infinite  order,  and  suggests  and  confirms  within  us 
eternal  aspiration.  Those  intimations  of  the  ideal 
and  endless  perfectness  which  are  dimmed  within 
us  by  the  meaner  aspects  of  human  life,  or  by  the 
sordid  difficulties  of  thought  which  a  sensual  and 
wealth-seeking  society  present  to  us,  are  restored 
to  us  by  her  quiet  order  and  beauty.  When  he 
wrote  PiHnce  HoJieiistiel-Schwangau,  Red  Cotton 
NigJit-cap  Country,  and  The  Inn  Album,  Nature 
had  ceased  to  awaken  the  poetic  passion  in  him, 
and  his  poetry  suffered  from  the  loss.  Its  interest 
lies  in  the  narrow  realm  of  intellectual  analysis, 
not  in  the  large  realm  of  tragic  or  joyous  passion. 
He  became  the  dissector  of  corrupt  bodies,  not  the 
creator  of  living  beings. 

Nevertheless,  in  Fifine  at  the  Fail-  there  are 
several  intercalated  illustrations  from  Nature,  all 
of  which  are  interesting  and  some  beautiful.  The 
sunset  over  Sainte-Marie  and  the  lie  Noirmoutier, 
with  the  birds  who  sing  to  the  dead,  and  the  com- 
ing of  the  night  wind  and  the  tide,  is  as  largely 
wrought  as  the  description  of  the  mountain  rill  — 
the  "infant  of  mist  and  dew,"  and  its  voyage  to 
the  sea  is  minute  and  delicate.  There  is  also  that 
magnificent  description  of  a  sunset  which  I  have 
already  quoted.  It  is  drawn  to  illustrate  some 
remote  point  in  the  argument,  and  is  far  too  mag- 
nificent for  the  thing  it  illustrates.  Yet  how  few 
in  this   long  poem,  how  remote  from  Browning's 


io8  BROWNING 

heart,  are  these  touches  of  Nature.  Again,  in 
The  Inn  Album  there  is  a  description  of  an  Eng- 
Hsh  elm-tree,  as  an  image  of  a  woman  who 
makes  marriage  Ufe  seem  perfect,  which  is  inter- 
esting because  it  is  the  third,  and  only  the  third, 
reference  to  English  scenery  in  the  multitude  of 
Browning's  verses.  The  first  is  in  Pauline^  the 
second  in  that  poem,  ''  Oh,  to  be  in  England,"  and 
this  is  the  third.  The  woman  has  never  ceased 
to  gaze 

On  the  great  elm-tree  in  the  open,  posed 
Placidly  fall  in  front,  smooth  bole,  broad  branch, 
And  leafage,  one  green  plenitude  of  May. 

.   .   .  bosomful 
Of  lights  and  shades,  murmurs  and  silences, 
Sun-warmth,  dew-coolness,  squirrel,  bee,  bird. 
High,  higher,  highest,  till  the  blue  proclaims 
"  Leave  Earth,  there's  nothing  better  till  next  step 
Heavenward  ! " 

This,  save  in  one  line,  is  not  felt  or  expressed  with 
any  of  that  passion  which  makes  what  a  poet  says 
completely  right. 

Browning  could  not  stay  altogether  in  this  con- 
dition, in  which,  moreover,  his  humour  was  also  in 
abeyance ;  and  in  his  next  book,  Pacckiarotto,  &c., 
he  broke  away  from  these  morbid  subjects,  and, 
with  that  recovery,  recovered  also  some  of  his  old 
love  of  Nature.  The  prologue  to  that  book  is 
poetry ;  and  Nature  (though  he  only  describes  an 
old  stone  wall  in  Italy  covered  with  straying  plants) 
is  interwoven  with  his  sorrow  and  his  love.  Then, 
all  through  the  book,  even  in  its  most  fantastic 
humour.  Nature  is  not  altogether  neglected  for  hu- 
manity; and  the  poetry,  which  Browning  seemed 
to    have   lost    the    power    to   create,   has    partly 


THE  TREATMENT  OF  NATURE  109 

returned  to  him.  That  is  also  the  case  in  La 
SaisiaZy  and  I  have  already  spoken  of  the  pecuHar 
elements  of  the  Nature-poetry  in  that  work.  In  the 
Dratnatic  Idyls,  of  which  he  was  himself  fond  ;  and 
vci  Jocoseriuy  there  is  very  little  natural  description. 
The  subjects  did  not  allow  of  it,  but  yet  Nature 
sometimes  glides  in,  and  when  she  does,  thrills  the 
verse  into  a  higher  humanity.  In  Fci-ishtaUs 
FancieSy  a  book  full  of  flying  charm,  Nature  has 
her  proper  place,  and  in  the  lyrics  which  close  the 
stories  she  is  not  forgotten ;  but  still  there  is  not 
the  care  for  her  which  once  ran  like  a  full  river  of 
delight  through  his  landscape  of  human  nature. 
He  loved,  indeed,  that  landscape  of  mankind  the 
most,  the  plains  and  hills  and  woods  of  human 
life ;  but  when  he  watered  it  with  the  great  river 
of  Nature  his  best  work  was  done.  Now,  as  life 
grew  to  a  close,  that  river  had  too  much  dried  up 
in  his  poetry. 

It  was  not  that  he  had  not  the  power  to  describe 
Nature  if  he  cared.  But  he  did  not  care.  I  have 
spoken  of  the  invented  descriptions  of  morn  and  noon 
and  sunset  in  Gerard  de  Lairesse  in  the  book  which 
preceded  Asolando.  They  have  his  trenchant 
power,  words  that  beat  out  the  scene  like  strokes 
on  an  anvil,  but,  curiously  enough,  they  are  quite 
unsuffused  with  human  feeling ;  as  if,  having  once 
divorced  Nature  from  humanity,  he  never  could 
bring  them  together  again.  Nor  is  this  a  mere 
theory.     The  Prologue  to  Asolando  supports  it. 

That  sorrowful  poem,  written,  it  seems,  in  the 
year  he  died  (1889),  reveals  his  position  towards 
Nature  when  he  had  lost  the  power  of  youth  to  pour 
fire  on  the  world.     It  is  full  of  his  last  thinking. 


no  BROWNING 

"  The  poet's  age  is  sad,"  he  says.  "  In  youth  his 
eye  lent  to  everything  in  the  natural  world  the 
colours  of  his  own  soul,  the  rainbow  glory  of 
imagination : 

"  And  now  a  flower  is  just  a  flower : 

Man,  bird,  beast  are  but  beast,  bird,  man  — 

Simply  themselves,  uncinct  by  dower 
Of  dyes  which,  when  life's  day  began, 

Round  each  in  glory  ran." 

"  Ah !  what  would  you  have  1 "  he  says. 
"  What  is  the  best :  things  draped  in  colour,  as  by 
a  lens,  or  the  naked  things  themselves }  truth 
ablaze,  or  falsehood's  fancy  haze .''  I  choose  the 
first." 

It  is  an  old  man's  effort  to  make  the  best  of  age. 
For  my  part,  I  do  not  see  that  the  things  are 
the  better  for  losing  the  colour  the  soul  gives  them. 
The  things  themselves  are  indifferent.  But  as  seen 
by  the  soul,  they  are  seen  in  God,  and  the  colour 
and  light  which  imagination  gives  them  are  them- 
selves divine.  Nor  is  their  colour  or  light  only  in 
our  imagination,  but  in  themselves  also,  part  of  the 
glory  and  beauty  of  God.  A  flower  is  never  only 
a  flower,  or  a  beast  a  beast.  And  so  Browning 
would  have  said  in  the  days  when  he  was  still  a 
lover  of  Nature  as  well  as  of  man,  when  he  was 
still  a  faithful  soldier  in  the  army  of  imagination,  a 
poet  more  than  a  philosopher  at  play.  It  is  a  sad 
business.  He  has  not  lost  his  eagerness  to  advance, 
to  climb  beyond  the  flaming  walls,  to  find  God  in 
his  heaven.  He  has  not  lost  the  great  hopes 
with  which  he  began,  nor  the  ideals  he  nursed  of 
old.  He  has  not  lost  his  fighting  power,  nor  his 
cheerful  cry  that  life  is  before  him  in  the  fulness  of 


THE  TREATMENT  OF  NATURE  in 

the  world  to  come.  The  Reverie  and  the  Epi- 
logue to  Asolando  are  noble  statements  of  his 
courage,  faith,  and  joy.  There  is  nothing  sad 
there,  nothing  to  make  us  beat  the  breast.  But 
there  is  sadness  in  this  abandonment  of  the  imagi- 
native glory  with  which  once  he  clothed  the  world 
of  nature ;  and  he  ought  to  have  retained  it.  He 
would  have  done  so  had  he  not  forgotten  Nature  in 
anatomising  man. 

However,  he  goes  on  with  his  undying  effort  to 
make  the  best  of  things,  and  though  he  has  lost  his 
rapture  in  Nature,  he  has  not  lost  his  main  theory 
of  man's  life  and  of  the  use  of  the  universe.  The 
end  of  this  Prologue  puts  it  as  clearly  as  it  was  put 
in  Paracelsus.     Nothing  is  changed  in  that. 

"  At  Asolo,"  he  continues,  *'  my  Asolo,  when  I 
was  young,  all  natural  objects  were  palpably  clothed 
with  fire.  They  mastered  me,  not  I  them.  Terror 
was  in  their  beauty.  I  was  Hke  Moses  before  the 
Bush  that  burned.  I  adored  the  splendour  I  saw. 
Then  I  was  in  danger  of  being  content  with  it ;  of 
mistaking  the  finite  for  the  infinite  beauty.  To  be 
satisfied  —  that  was  the  peril.  Now  I  see  the 
natural  world  as  it  is,  without  the  rainbow  hues  the 
soul  bestowed  upon  it.  Is  that  well .''  In  one  sense 
yes. 

"  And  now  ?    The  lambent  flame  is  —  where  ? 
Lost  from  the  naked  world  :  earth,  sky, 

Hill,  vale,  tree,  flower  —  Italians  rare 
O'er-running  beauty  crowds  the  eye  — 

But  flame  ? — The  Bush  is  bare. 

"  All  is  distinct,  naked,  clear.  Nature  and  nothing 
else.  Have  I  lost  anything  in  getting  down  to  fact 
instead  of   to   fancy }     Have    I   shut   my  eyes  in 


112  BROWNING 

pain  —  pain  for  disillusion  ?  No  —  now  I  know 
that  my  home  is  not  in  Nature ;  there  is  no  awe 
and  splendour  in  her  which  can  keep  me  with  her. 
Oh,  far  beyond  is  the  true  splendour,  the  infinite 
source  of  awe  and  love  which  transcends  her : 

"No,  for  the  purged  ear  apprehends 
Earth's  import,  not  the  eye  late  dazed : 

The  Voice  said  '•  Call  my  works  thy  friends ! 
At  Nature  dost  thou  shrink  amazed  ? 

God  is  it  who  transcends.' " 

All  Browning  is  in  that  way  of  seeing  the  matter  ; 
but  he  forgets  that  he  could  see  it  in  the  same  fashion 
while  he  still  retained  the  imaginative  outlook  on 
the  world  of  Nature.  And  the  fact  is  that  he  did 
do  so  in  Paracelsus,  in  Easter-Day,  in  a  host  of  other 
poems.  There  was  then  no  need  for  him  to  reduce 
to  naked  fact  the  glory  with  which  young  imagina- 
tion clothed  the  world,  in  order  to  realise  that 
God  transcended  Nature.  He  had  conceived  that 
truth  and  believed  it  long  ago.  And  this  explana- 
tion, placed  here,  only  tells  us  that  he  had  lost 
his  ancient  love  of  Nature,  and  it  is  sorrowful  to 
understand  it  of  him. 

Finally,  the  main  contentions  of  this  chapter, 
which  are  drawn  from  a  chronological  view  of 
Browning's  treatment  of  Nature,  are  perhaps  worth 
a  summary.  The  first  is  that,  though  the  love  of 
Nature  was  always  less  ;in  him  than  his  love  of 
human  nature,  yet  for  the  first  half  of  his  work 
it  was  so  interwoven  with  his  human  poetry  that 
Nature  suggested  to  him  humanity  and  humanity 
Nature.  And  these  two,  as  subjects  for  thought 
and  feeling,  were  each  uplifted  and  impassioned, 
illustrated  and  developed,  by  this  intercommunion. 


THE  TREATMENT  OF  NATURE  113 

That  was  a  true  and  high  position.  Humanity  was 
first,  Nature  second  in  Browning's  poetry,  but  both 
were  linked  together  in  a  noble  marriage ;  and  at 
that  time  he  wrote  his  best  poetry. 

The  second  thing  this  chronological  treatment  of 
his  Nature-poetry  shows,  is  that  his  interest  in  human 
nature  pushed  out  his  love  of  Nature,  gradually  at 
first,  but  afterwards  more  swiftly,  till  Nature  became 
almost  non-existent  in  his  poetry.  With  that  his 
work  sank  down  into  intellectual  or  ethical  exer- 
cises, in  which  poetry  decayed. 

It  shows,  thirdly,  how  the  love  of  Nature,  re- 
turning, but  returning  with  diminished  power,  en- 
tered again  into  his  love  of  human  nature,  and 
renewed  the  passion  of  his  poetry,  its  singing, 
and  its  health.  But  reconciliations  of  this  kind 
do  not  bring  back  all  the  ancient  affection  and 
happiness.  Nature  and  humanity  never  lived 
together  in  his  poetry  in  as  vital  a  harmony  as 
before,  nor  was  the  work  done  on  them  as  good 
as  it  was  of  old.  A  broken  marriage  is  not  re- 
paired by  an  apparent  condonation.  Nature  and 
humanity,  though  both  now  dwelt  in  him,  kept 
separate  rooms.  Their  home-life  was  destroyed. 
Browning  had  been  drawn  away  by  a  Fifine  of 
humanity.  He  never  succeeded  in  living  happily 
again  with  Elvire;  and  while  our  intellectual  in- 
terest in  his  work  remained,  our  poetic  interest 
in  it  lessened.  We  read  it  for  mental  and  ethical 
entertainment,  not  for  ideal  joy. 

No ;  if  poetry  is  to  be  perfectly  written  ;  if  the 
art  is  to  be  brought  to  its  noblest  height ;  if  it  is  to 
continue  to  Hft  the  hearts  of  men  into  the  realm 
where  perfection  lives  ;  if  it  is  to  glow,  an  unwearied 


114  BROWNING 

fire,  in  the  world  ;  the  love  of  Nature  must  be  justly 
mingled  in  it  with  the  love  of  humanity.  The  love 
of  humanity  must  be  first,  the  love  of  Nature  sec- 
ond, but  they  must  not  be  divorced.  When  they 
are,  when  the  love  of  Nature  forms  the  only  sub- 
ject, or  when  the  love  of  Man  forms  the  only  sub- 
ject, poetry  decays  and  dies. 


CHAPTER   IV 

BROWNING'S   THEORY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE 
PAULINE  AND  PARACELSUS 

TO  isolate  Browning's  view  of  Nature,  and  to 
leave  it  behind  us,  seemed  advisable  before 
speaking  of  his  work  as  a  poet  of  mankind.  We 
can  now  enter  freely  on  that  which  is  most  dis- 
tinctive, most  excellent  in  his  work  —  his  human 
poetry ;  and  the  first  thing  that  meets  us  and  in  his 
very  first  poems,  is  his  special  view  of  human 
nature,  and  of  human  life,  and  of  the  relation  of 
both  to  God.  It  marks  his  originality  that  this 
view  was  entirely  his  own.  Ancient  thoughts  of 
course  are  to  be  found  in  it,  but  his  combination  of 
them  is  original  amongst  the  Enghsh  poets.  It 
marks  his  genius  that  he  wrought  out  this  con- 
ception while  he  was  yet  so  young.  It  is  partly 
shaped  in  Pauline ;  it  is  fully  set  forth  in  Paracelsus. 
And  it  marks  his  consistency  of  mind  that  he  never 
changed  it.  I  do  not  think  he  ever  added  to  it  or 
developed  it.  It  satisfied  him  when  he  was  a 
youth,  and  when  he  was  an  old  man.  We  have 
already  seen  it  clearly  expressed  in  the  Prologue 
to  Asolaiido. 

That  theory  needs  to  be  outlined,  for  till  it  is 
understood  Browning's  poetry  cannot  be  understood 

"5 


Ii6  BROWNING 

or  loved  as  fully  as  we  should  desire  to  love  it. 
It  exists  in  Patdine,  but  all  its  elements  are  in 
solution ;  uncombined,  but  waiting  the  electric 
flash  which  will  mix  them,  in  due  proportions,  into 
a  composite  substance,  having  a  lucid  form,  and 
capable  of  being  used.  That  flash  was  sent  through 
the  confused  elements  of  Pauline^  and  the  result 
was  Paracelsus. 

I  will  state  the  theory  first,  and  then,  lightly 
passing  through  Pauline  and  Paracelsus,  re-tell  it. 
It  is  fitting  to  apologise  for  the  repetition  which 
this  method  of  treatment  will  naturally  cause  ;  but, 
considering  that  the  theory  underlies  every  drama 
and  poem  that  he  wrote  during  sixty  years,  such 
repetition  does  not  seem  unnecessary.  There  are 
many  who  do  not  easily  grasp  it,  or  do  not  grasp  it 
at  all,  and  they  may  be  grateful.  As  to  those  who 
do  understand  it,  they  will  be  happy  in  their  anger 
with  any  explanation  of  what  they  know  so  well. 

He  asks  what  is  the  secret  of  the  world :  "  of 
man  and  man's  true  purpose,  path,  and  fate."  He 
proposes  to  understand  "  God  and  his  works  and 
all  God's  intercourse  with  the  human  soul." 

We  are  here,  he  thinks,  to  grow  enough  to  be 
able  to  take  our  part  in  another  life  or  lives.  But 
we  are  surrounded  by  limitations  which  baffle  and 
retard  our  growth.  That  is  miserable,  but  not  so 
much  as  we  think ;  for  the  failures  these  limita- 
tions cause  prevent  us  —  and  this  is  a  main  point 
in  Browning's  view  —  from  being  content  with  our 
condition  on  the  earth.  There  is  that  within  us 
which  is  always  endeavouring  to  transcend  those 
limitations,  and  which  believes  in  their  final  dis- 
persal.    This  aspiration  rises  to  something  higher 


BROWNING'S  THEORY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    117 

than  any  possible  actual  on  earth.  It  is  never 
worn  out;  it  is  the  divine  in  us;  and  when  it 
seems  to  decay,  God  renews  it  by  spiritual  influ- 
ences from  without  and  within,  coming  to  us  from 
Nature  as  seen  by  us,  from  humanity  as  felt  by  us, 
and  from  himself  who  dwells  in  us. 

But  then,  unless  we  find  out  and  submit  to  those 
limitations,  and  work  within  them,  life  is  useless, 
so  far  as  any  Hfe  is  useless.     But  while  we  work 
within  them,  we  see  beyond  them  an  inimitable 
land,  and  thirst  for  it.     This  battle  between  the 
dire  necessity  of  working  in  chains  and  longing  for 
freedom,  between  the  infinite  destiny  of  the  soul 
and  the  baffling  of  its  effort  to  realise  its  infini- 
tude on  earth,  makes  the  storm  and  misery  of  life. 
We  may  try  to  escape  that  tempest  and  sorrow 
by  determining  to  think,  feel,  and  act  only  within 
our  limitations,  to  be  content  with  them  as  Goethe 
said ;  but  if  we  do,  we  are  worse  off  than  before. 
We  have  thrown  away  our  divine  destiny.     If  we 
take  this  world  and  are  satisfied  with  it,  cease  to 
aspire,  beyond  our  limits,  to  full  perfection  in  God ; 
if  our  soul  should  ever  say,  "I  want  no  more; 
what  I  have  here  — the  pleasure,  fame,  knowledge, 
beauty,  or  love  of  this  world  —  is  all  I  need  or  care 
for,"  then  we  are  indeed  lost.     That  is  the  last 
damnation.     The  worst  failure,  the  deepest  misery, 
is   better   than  contentment  with  the   success  of 
earth;    and  seen  in   this    light,   the  failures   and 
misery  of  earth  are  actually  good  things,  the  cause 
of  a  chastened  joy.     They  open  to  us  the  larger 
light.    They  suggest,  and  in  Browning's  behef  they 
proved,  that  this  life  is  but  the  threshold  of  an 
infinite  life,  that  our  true  life  is  beyond,  that  there 


ii8  BROWNING 

is  an  infinite  of  happiness,  of  knowledge,  of  love, 
of  beauty  which  we  shall  attain.  Our  failures  are 
prophecies  of  eternal  successes.  To  choose  the 
finite  life  is  to  miss  the  infinite  Life !  O  fool,  to 
claim  the  little  cup  of  water  earth's  knowledge 
offers  to  thy  thirst,  or  the  beauty  or  love  of  earth, 
when  the  immeasurable  waters  of  the  Knowledge, 
Beauty,  and  Love  of  the  Eternal  Paradise  are  thine 
beyond  the  earth. 

Two  things  are  then  clear:  i.  The  attainment 
of  our  desires  for  perfection,  the  satisfaction  of  our 
passion  for  the  infinite,  is  forbidden  to  us  on  earth 
by  the  Hmitations  of  life.  We  are  made  imperfect; 
we  are  kept  imperfect  here ;  and  we  must  do  all 
our  work  within  the  limits  this  natural  imperfection 
makes.  2.  We  must,  nevertheless,  not  cease  to 
strive  towards  the  perfection  unattainable  on  earth, 
but  which  shall  be  attained  hereafter.  Our  des- 
tiny, the  God  within  us,  demands  that.  And  we 
lose  it,  if  we  are  content  with  our  earthly  life,  even 
with  its  highest  things,  with  knowledge,  beauty,  or 
with  love. 

Hence,  the  foundation  of  Browning's  theory  is 
a  kind  of  Original  Sin  in  us,  a  natural  defective- 
ness deliberately  imposed  on  us  by  God,  which  pre- 
vents us  attaining  any  absolute  success  on  earth. 
And  this  defectiveness  of  nature  is  met  by  the 
truth,  which,  while  we  aspire,  we  know  —  that  God 
will  fulfil  all  noble  desire  in  a  life  to  come. 

We  must  aspire  then,  but  at  the  same  time  all 
aspiring  is  to  be  conterminous  with  steady  work 
within  our  limits.  Aspiration  to  the  perfect  is  not  to 
make  us  idle,  indifferent  to  the  present,  but  to  drive 
us  on.    Its  passion  teaches  us,  as  it  urges  into  action 


BROWNING'S   THEORY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    119 

all  our  powers,  what  we  can  and  what  we  cannot 
do.  That  is,  it  teaches  us,  through  the  action  it 
engenders,  what  our  Hmits  are ;  and  when  we 
know  them,  the  main  duties  of  life  rise  clear.  The 
first  of  these  is,  to  work  patiently  within  our 
limits  ;  and  the  second  is  the  apparent  contradiction 
of  the  first,  never  to  be  satisfied  with  our  limits,  or 
with  the  results  we  attain  within  them.  Then, 
having  worked  within  them,  but  always  looked 
beyond  them,  we,  as  life  closes,  learn  the  secret. 
The  failures  of  earth  prove  the  victory  beyond : 
'^For  — 

what  is  our  failure  here  but  a  triumph's  evidence 
For  the  fulness  of  the  days  ?    Have  we  withered  or  agonised  ? 
Why  else  was  the  pause  prolonged  but  that  singing  might  issue 
thence? 
Why  rushed  the  discords  in  but  that  harmony  should  be 
prized  ? 
Sorrow  is  hard  to  bear,  and  doubt  is  slow  to  clear, 

Each  suiTerer  says  his  say,  his  scheme  of  the  weal  and  the 
woe 
But  God  has  a  few  of  us  whom  he  whispers  in  the  ear; 

The  rest  may  reason,  and  welcome  :  'tis  we  musicians  know. 

—  AM  Vogler. 

Finally,  the  root  and  flower  of  this  patient  but 
uncontented  work  is  Love  for  man  because  of  his 
being  in  God,  because  of  his  high  and  immortal 
destiny.  All  that  we  do,  whether  failure  or  not, 
builds  up  the  perfect  humanity  to  come,  and  flows 
into  the  perfection  of  God  in  whom  is  the 
perfection  of  man.  This  love,  grounded  on  this 
faith,  brings  joy  into  life;  and,  in  this  joy  of  love, 
we  enter  into  the  eternal  temple  of  the  Life  to 
come.  Love  opens  Heaven  while  Earth  closes  us 
round.     At   last   limitations  cease   to   trouble   us. 


120  BROWNING 

They  are  lost  in  the  vision,  they  bring  no  more 
sorrow,  doubt,  or  baffling.  Therefore,  in  this 
confused  chaotic  time  on  earth  — 

Earn  the  means  first.     God  surely  will  contrive 

Use  for  our  earning. 
Others  mistrust,  and  say  :  "  But  time  escapes; 

Live  now  or  never  !  " 
He  said,  "  What's  time  ?     Leave  Now  for  dogs  and  apes! 

Man  has  Forever." 

—  A  Grain7jiariatCs  Funeral. 

This  is  a  sketch  of  his  explanation  of  life. 
The  expression  of  it  began  in  Pauline.  Had  that 
poem  been  as  imitative,  as  poor  as  the  first  efforts 
of  poets  usually  are,  we  might  leave  it  aside.  But 
though,  as  he  said,  "  good  draughtsmanship  and 
right  handling  were  far  beyond  the  artist  at  that 
time,"  though  "with  repugnance  and  purely  of 
necessity  "  he  republished  it,  he  did  republish  it ; 
and  he  was  right.  It  was  crude  and  confused,  but 
the  stuff  in  it  was  original  and  poetic  ;  wonderful 
stuff  for  a  young  man. 

The  first  design  of  it  was  huge.  Paulhie  is  but 
a  fragment  of  a  poem  which  was  to  represent,  not 
one  but  various  types  of  human  life.  It  became 
only  the  presentation  of  the  type  of  the  poet,  the 
first  sketch  of  the  youth  of  Sordello.  The  other 
types  conceived  were  worked  up  into  other  poems. 

The  hero  in  Pauline  hides  in  his  love  for  Pauline 
from  a  past  he  longed  to  forget.  He  had  aspired 
to  the  absolute  beauty  and  goodness,  and  the  end 
was  vanity  and  vexation.  The  shanie  of  this 
failure  beset  him  from  the  past,  and  the  failure  was 
caused  because  he  had  not  been  true  to  the  as- 
pirations which  took  him  beyond  himself.    When  he 


BROWNING'S  THEORY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    121 

returned  to  self,  the  glory  departed.  And  a  fine 
simile  of  his  soul  as  a  young  witch  whose  blue  eyes, 

As  she  stood  naked  by  the  river  springs, 
Drew  down  a  God, 

who,  as  he  sat  in  the  sunshine  on  her  knees  singing 
of  heaven,  saw  the  mockery  in  her  eyes  and  van- 
ished, tells  of  how  the  early  ravishment  departed, 
slain  by  self-scorn  that  followed  on  self-worship. 
But  one  love  and  reverence  remained  —  that  for 
Shelley,  the  Sun-treader,  and  kept  him  from  being 
"  wholly  lost."  To  strengthen  this  one  self-forget- 
ful element,  the  love  of  PauHne  enters  in,  and  the 
new  impulse  brings  back  something  of  the  ancient 
joy.     "Let  me  take  it,"  he  cries,   "and  sing  on 

again 

fast  as  fancies  come  ; 
Rudely,  the  verse  being  as  the  mood  it  paints,  —  " 

a  line  which  tells  us  how  Browning  wished  his 
metrical  movement  to  be  judged.  This  is  the 
exordium,  and  it  is  already  full  of  his  theory  of  life 
—  the  soul  forced  from  within  to  aspire  to  the 
perfect  whole,  the  necessary  failure,  the  despair, 
the  new  impulse  to  love  arising  out  of  the  despair ; 
failure  making  fresh  growth,  fresh  uncontentment. 
God  has  sent  a  new  impulse  from  without ;  let  me 
begin  again. 

Then,  in  the  new  light,  he  strips  his  mind  bare. 
What  am  1 1  What  have  I  done  t  Where  am  I 
going } 

The  first  element  in  his  soul,  he  thinks,  is  a 
living  personality,  linked  to  a  principle  of  restless- 
ness, 

Which  would  be  all,  have,  see,  know,  taste,  feel,  all. 


122  BROWNING 

And  this  would  plunge  him  into  the  depths  of  self 
were  it  not  for  that  Imagination  in  him  whose 
power  never  fails  to  bear  him  beyond  himself  ;  and 
is  finally  in  him  a  need,  a  trust,  a  yearning  after 
God ;  whom,  even  when  he  is  most  lost,  he  feels 
is  always  acting  on  him,  and  at  every  point  of  life 
transcending  him. 

And  Imagination  began  to  create,  and  made  him 
at  one  with  all  men  and  women  of  whom  he  had 
read  (the  same  motive  is  repeated  in  Sordello\  but 
especially  at  one  with  those  out  of  the  Greek  world 
he  loved  —  **a  God  wandering  after  Beauty" — a 
high-crested  chief 

Sailing  with  troops  of  friends  to  Tenedos. 

Never  was  anything  more  clear  than  these  lives  he 
lived  beyond  himself ;  and  the  lines  in  which  he 
records  the  vision  have  all  the  sharpness  and 
beauty  of  his  after-work  — 

I  had  not  seen  a  work  of  lofty  art, 

Nor  woman's  beauty  nor  sweet  Nature's  face,"' 

Yet,  I  say,  never  morn  broke  clear  as  those 

On  the  dim-clustered  isles  in  the  blue  sea, 

The  deep  groves  and  white  temples  and  wet  caves : 

And  nothing  ever  will  surprise  me  now  — 

Who  stood  beside  the  naked  Swift-footed, 

Who  bound  my  forehead  with  Proserpine's  hair. 

Yet,  having  this  infinite  world  of  beauty,  he 
aimed  low ;  lost  in  immediate  wants,  striving  only 
for  the  mortal  and  the  possible,  while  all  the  time 
there  lived  in  him,  breathing  with  keen  desire, 
powers  which,  developed,  would  make  him  at  one 
with  the  infinite  Life  of  God. 

But  having  thus  been  untrue  to  his  early  aspiration, 
he  fell  into  the  sensual  life,  like  Paracelsus,  and 


BROWNING'S   THEORY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    123 

then,  remorseful,  sought  peace  in  self-restraint; 
but  no  rest,  no  contentment  was  gained  that  way. 
It  is  one  of  Browning's  root-ideas  that  peace  is  not 
won  by  repression  of  the  noble  passions,  but  by 
letting  them  loose  in  full  freedom  to  pursue  after 
their  highest  aims.  Not  in  restraint,  but  in  the 
conscious  impetuosity  of  the  soul  towards  the 
divine  realities,  is  the  wisdom  of  life.  Many 
poems  are  consecrated  to  this  idea. 

So,  cleansing  his  soul  by  ennobling  desire,  he 
sought  to  reahse  his  dreams  in  the  arts,  in  the 
creation  and  expression  of  pure  Beauty.  And  he 
followed  Poetry  and  Music  and  Painting,  and  chiefly 
explored  passion  and  mind  in  the  great  poets. 
Fed  at  these  deep  springs,  his  soul  rose  into  keen 
life;  his  powers  burst  forth,  and  gazing  on  all 
systems  and  schemes  of  philosophy  and  govern- 
ment, he  heard  ineffable  things  unguessed  by  man. 
All  Plato  entered  into  him  ;  he  vowed  himself  to 
liberty  and  the  new  world  where  "  men  were  to  be 
as  gods  and  earth  as  heaven."  Thus,  yet  here 
on  earth,  not  only  beyond  the  earth,  he  would 
attain  the  Perfect.  Man  also  shall  attain  it ;  and 
so  thinking,  he  turned,  like  Sordello,  to  look  at  and 
learn  mankind,  pondering  "  how  best  life's  end 
might  be  attained  —  an  end  comprising  every  joy." 

And  even  as  he  believed,  the  glory  vanished; 
everything  he  had  hoped  for  broke  to  pieces  : 

First  went  my  hopes  of  perfecting  mankind, 
Next  —  faith  in  them,  and  then  in  freedom's  self 
And  virtue's  self,  then  my  own  motives,  ends 
And  aims  and  loves,  and  human  love  went  last. 

And  then,  with  the  loss  of  all  these  things  of  the 
soul  which  bear  a  man's  desires  into  the  invisible 


124  BROWNING 

and  unreachable,  he  gained  the  world,  and  success 
in  it.  All  the  powers  of  the  mere  Intellect,  that 
grey-haired  deceiver  whose  name  is  Archimago, 
were  his; — wit,  mockery,  analytic  force,  keen  rea- 
soning on  the  visible,  the  Understanding's  absolute 
belief  in  itself;  its  close  grasp  on  what  it  called 
facts,  and  its  clear  application  of  knowledge  for  clear 
ends.  God,  too,  had  vanished  in  this  intellectual 
satisfaction ;  and  in  the  temple  of  his  soul,  where 
He  had  been  worshipped,  troops  of  shadows  now 
knelt  to  the  man  whose  intellect,  having  grasped 
all  knowledge,  was  content ;  and  hailed  him  as  king. 

The  position  he  describes  is  like  that  Words- 
worth states  in  the  Prelude  to  have  been  his,  when, 
after  the  vanishing  of  his  aspirations  for  man 
which  followed  the  imperialistic  fiasco  of  the 
French  Revolution,  he  found  himself  without  love 
or  hope,  but  with  full  power  to  make  an  intellectual 
analysis  of  Nature  and  of  human  nature,  and  was 
destroyed  thereby.  It  is  the  same  position  which 
Paracelsus  attains  and  which  is  followed  by  the 
same  ruin.  It  is  also,  so  far  as  its  results  are 
concerned,  the  position  of  the  Soul  described  by 
Tennyson  in  The  Palace  of  Art. 

Love,  emotion,  God  are  shut  out.  Intellect  and 
knowledge  of  the  world's  work  take  their  place. 
And  the  result  is  the  slow  corrosion  of  the  soul 
by  pride.  "  I  have  nursed  up  energies,"  says 
Browning,  "they  will  prey  on  me."  He  feels 
this  and  breaks  away  from  its  death.  **  My 
heart  must  worship,"  he  cries.  The  "  shadows  " 
know  this  feeling  is  against  them,  and  they  shout 
in  answer : 

"Thyself,  thou  art  our  king!" 


BROWNING'S   THEORY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    125 

But  the  end  of  that  is  misery.  Therefore  he  begins 
to  aspire  again,  but  still,  not  for  the  infinite  of 
perfection  beyond,  but  for  a  finite  perfection  on,  the 
earth. 

"  I  will  make  every  joy  here  my  own,"  he  cries, 
*'  and  then  I  will  die."  "  I  will  have  one  rapture 
to  fill  all  the  soul."  "All  knowledge  shall  be 
mine."  It  is  the  aspiration  of  Paracelsus.  *'  I  will 
live  in  the  whole  of  Beauty,  and  here  it  shall  be 
mine."  It  is  the  aspiration  of  Aprile.  "Then, 
having  this  perfect  human  soul,  master  of  all 
powers,  I  shall  break  forth,  at  some  great  crisis  in 
history,  and  lead  the  world."  It  is  the  very  aspi- 
ration of  Sordello. 

But  when  he  tries  for  this,  he  finds  failure  at 
every  point.  Everywhere  he  is  limited;  his  soul 
demands  what  his  body  refuses  to  fulfil ;  he  is 
always  baffled,  faUing  short,  chained  down  and 
maddened  by  restrictions  ;  unable  to  use  what  he 
conceives,  to  grasp  as  a  tool  what  he  can  reach  in 
Thought ;  hating  himself ;  imagining  what  might 
be,  and  driven  back  from  it  in  despair. 

Even  in  his  love  for  Pauline,  in  which  he  has 
skirted  the  infinite  and  known  that  his  soul  cannot 
accept  finality  —  he  finds  that  in  him  which  is  still 
unsatisfied. 

What  does  this  puzzle  mean }  "  It  means,"  he 
answers,  "that  this  earth's  life  is  not  my  only 
sphere, 

Can  I  so  narrow  sense  but  that  in  life 
Soul  still  exceeds  it  ? " 

Yet,  he  will  try  again.  He  has  lived  in  all  human 
life,  and  his  craving  is  still  athirst.     He  has  not 


126  BROWNING 

yet  tried  Nature  herself.  She  seems  to  have  un- 
dying beauty,  and  his  feeUng  for  her  is  now,  of 
course,  doubled  by  his  love  for  Pauline.  "  Come 
with  me,"  he  cries  to  her,  "come  out  of  the  world 
into  natural  beauty  "  ;  and  there  follows  a  noble 
description  of  a  lovely  country  into  which  he 
passes  from  a  mountain  glen  —  morning,  noon, 
afternoon,  and  evening  all  described  —  and  the 
emotion  of  the  whole  rises  till  it  reaches  the  top- 
most height  of  eagerness  and  joy,  when,  suddenly, 
the  whole  fire  is  extinguished  — 

I  am  concentrated  —  I  feel ; 
But  my  soul  saddens  when  it  looks  beyond : 
I  cannot  be  immortal,  taste  all  joy. 

O  God,  where  do  they  tend  —  these  struggling  aims? 
What  would  I  have  ?     What  is  this  "  sleep  "  which  seems 
To  bound  all  ?     Can  there  be  a  "  waking  "  point 
Of  crowning  life  ? 

And  what  is  that  I  hunger  for  but  God  ? 

So,  having  worked  towards  perfection,  having 
realised  that  he  cannot  have  it  here,  he  sees  at  last 
that  the  failures  of  earth  are  a  prophecy  of  a  per- 
fection to  come.  He  claims  the  infinite  beyond. 
"  I  beheve,"  he  cries,  "  in  God  and  truth  and  love. 
Know  my  last  state  is  happy,  free  from  doubt  or 
touch  of  fear." 

That  is  Browning  all  over.  These  are  the 
motives  of  a  crowd  of  poems,  varied  through  a 
crowd  of  examples ;  never  better  shaped  than  in 
the  trenchant  and  magnificent  end  of  Easter-Day^ 
where  the  questions  and  answers  are  like  the  flash- 
ing and  clashing  of  sharp  scimitars.  Out  of  the 
same  quarry  from  which  Pauline  was  hewn  the  rest 


BROWNING'S   THEORY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    127 

were  hewn.  They  are  pohshed,  richly  sculptured, 
hammered  into  fair  form,  but  the  stone  is  the  same. 
Few  have  been  so  consistent  as  Browning,  few  so 
true  to  their  early  inspiration.     He  is  among  those 

happy  warriors 

Who,  when  brought 
Among  the  tasks  of  real  life,  have  wrought 
Upon  the  plan  that  pleased  their  boyish  thought. 

This,  then,  is  Pauline ;  I  pass  on  to  Paracelsus. 
Paracelsus,  in  order  to  give  the  poem  a  little  local 
colour,  opens  at  Wiirzburg  in  a  garden,  and  in  the 
year  15 12.  But  it  is  not  a  poem  which  has  to  do 
with  any  place  or  any  time.  It  belongs  only  to 
the  country  of  the  human  soul.  The  young  student 
Paracelsus  is  sitting  with  his  friends  Festus  and 
Michal,  on  the  eve  of  his  departure  to  conquer  the 
whole  world  by  knowledge.  They  make  a  last 
effort  to  retain  him,  but  even  as  he  listens  to  their 
arguments  his  eyes  are  far  away  — 

As  if  where'er  he  gazed  there  stood  a  star, 

SO  strong,  so  deep  is  desire  to  attain  his  aim. 

For  Paracelsus  aims  to  know  the  whole  of  know- 
ledge. Quiet  and  its  charms,  this  homelike  garden 
of  still  work,  make  their  appeal  in  vain.  *'  God 
has  called  me,"  he  cries  ;  "  these  burning  desires  to 
know  all  are  his  voice  in  me ;  and  if  I  stay  and 
plod  on  here,  I  reject  his  call  who  has  marked  me 
from  mankind.  I  must  reach  pure  knowledge.  That 
is  my  only  aim,  my  only  reward." 

Then  Festus  replies :  '*  In  this  solitariness  of 
aim,  all  other  interests  of  humanity  are  left  out. 
Will  knowledge,  alone,  give  you  enough  for  life } 
You,  a   man  !  "     And   again  :    **  You  discern  your 


128  BROWNING 

purpose  clearly  ;  have  you  any  security  of  attaining 
it  ?  Is  it  not  more  than  mortal  power  is  capable 
of  winning?"  Or  again:  *' Have  you  any  know- 
ledge of  the  path  to  knowledge  ?  "  Or,  once  more, 
"  Is  anything  in  your  mind  so  clear  as  this,  your 
own  desire  to  be  singly  famous  ?  " 

"All  this  is  nothing,"  Paracelsus  answers;  "the 
restless  force  within  me  will  overcome  all  difficul- 
ties. God  does  not  give  that  fierce  energy  with- 
out giving  also  that  which  it  desires.  And,  I  am 
chosen  out  of  all  the  world  to  win  this  glory." 

"Why  not  then,"  says  Festus,  "make  use  of 
knowledge  already  gained  ?  Work  here ;  what 
knowledge  will  you  gain  in  deserts  ?  " 

"I  have  tried  all  the  knowledge  of  the  past," 
Paracelsus  replies,  "  and  found  it  a  contemptible 
failure.  Others  were  content  with  the  scraps  they 
won.  Not  I !  I  want  the  whole ;  the  source  and 
sum  of  divine  and  human  knowledge,  and  though 
I  craze  as  even  one  truth  expands  its  infinitude 
before  me,  I  go  forth  alone,  rejecting  all  that 
others  have  done,  to  prove  my  own  soul.  I  shall 
arrive  at  last.  And  as  to  mankind,  in  winning 
perfect  knowledge  I  shall  serve  them  ;  but  then,  all 
intercourse  ends  between  them  and  me.  I  will  not 
be  served  by  those  I  serve." 

"  Oh,"  answers  Festus,  "  is  that  cause  safe  which 
produces  carelessness  of  human  love.''  You  have 
thrown  aside  all  the  helps  of  human  knowledge ; 
now  you  reject  all  sympathy.  No  man  can  thrive 
who  dares  to  claim  to  serve  the  race,  while  he  is 
bound  by  no  single  tie  to  the  race.  You  would 
be  a  being  knowing  not  what  Love  is  —  a  monstrous 
spectacle ! " 


BROWNING'S   THEORY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    129 

"That  may  be  true,"  Paracelsus  replies,  "but 
for  the  time  I  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  feehng. 
My  affections  shall  remain  at  rest,  and  then,  when 
I  have  attained  my  single  aim,  when  knowledge  is 
all  mine,  my  affections  will  awaken  purified  and 
chastened  by  my  knowledge.  Let  me,  unhampered 
by  sympathy,  win  my  victory.  And  I  go  forth 
certain  of  victory." 

Are  there  not,  Festus,  are  there  not,  dear  Michal, 
Two  points  in  the  adventure  of  the  diver : 
One  —when,  a  beggar,  he  prepares  to  plunge  ; 
One  —  when,  a  prince,  he  rises  with  his  pearl  1 
Festus,  I  plunge ! 

Festus.  We  wait  you  when  you  rise. 

So  ends  the  first  part,  and  the  second  opens  ten 
years  afterwards  in  a  Greek  Conjurer's  house  in 
Constantinople,  with  Paracelsus  writing  down  the 
result  of  his  work.     And  the  result  is  this : 

"  I  have  made  a  few  discoveries,  but  I  could  not 
stay  to  use  them.  Nought  remains  but  a  ceaseless, 
hungry  pressing  forward,  a  vision  now  and  then  of 
truth  ;  and  I  —  I  am  old  before  my  hour :  the  adage 
is  true  — 

Time  fleets,  youth  fades,  life  is  an  empty  dream ; 

and  now  I  would  give  a  world  to  rest,  even  in 
failure ! 

"  This  is  all  my  gain.  Was  it  for  this,"  he  cries, 
"  I  subdued  my  life,  lost  my  youth,  rooted  out  love  ; 
for  the  sake  of  this  wolfish  thirst  of  knowledge } " 
No  dog,  said  Faust,  in  Goethe's  poem,  driven  to 
the  same  point  by  the  weariness  of  knowledge,  no 
dog  would  longer  live  this  life.  "  My  tyrant  aim 
has   brought   me   into    a  desert;    worse    still,  the 


K 


130  BROWNING 

purity  of  my  aim  is  lost.  Can  I  truly  say  that  I 
have  worked  for  man  alone  ?  Sadder  still,  if  I  had 
found  that  which  I  sought,  should  I  have  had  power 
to  use  it  ?  O  God,  Thou  who  art  pure  mind,  spare 
my  mind.  Thus  far,  I  have  been  a  man.  Let  me 
conclude,  a  man !  Give  me  back  one  hour  of  my 
young  energy,  that  I  may  use  and  finish  what  I 
know. 

*'  And  God  is  good :  I  started  sure  of  that ;  and 
he  may  still  renew  my  heart. 

True,  I  am  worn ; 
But  who  clothes  summer,  who  is  life  itself  ? 
God,  that  created  all  things,  can  renew  ! " 

At  this  moment  the  voice  of  Aprile  is  heard 
singing  the  song  of  the  poets,  who,  having  great 
gifts,  refused  to  use  them,  or  abused  them,  or  were 
too  weak ;  and  who  therefore  live  apart  from  God, 
mourning  for  ever;  who  gaze  on  life,  but  live  no 
more.  He  breaks  in  on  Paracelsus,  and,  in  a  long 
passage  of  overlapping  thoughts,  Aprile  —  who 
would  love  infinitely  and  be  loved,  aspiring  to 
realise  every  form  of  love,  as  Paracelsus  has 
aspired  to  realise  the  whole  of  knowledge  —  makes 
Paracelsus  feel  that  love  is  what  he  wants.  And 
then,  when  Paracelsus  reahses  this,  Aprile  in  turn 
realises  that  he  wants  knowledge.  Each  recognises 
that  he  is  the  complement  of  the  other,  that 
knowledge  is  worthless  without  love,  and  love 
incapable  of  realising  its  aspirations  without  know- 
ledge —  as  if  love  did  not  contain  the  sum  of  know- 
ledge necessary  for  fine  being.  Both  have  failed ; 
and  it  seems,  at  first,  that  they  failed  because  they 
did  not  combine  their  aims.     But  the  chief  reason 


BROWNING'S   THEORY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    131 

of  their  failure  —  and  this  is,  indeed,  Browning's 
main  point  —  is  that  each  of  them  tried  to  do  more 
than  our  Hmits  on  earth  permit.  Paracelsus  would 
have  the  whole  sum  of  knowledge,  Aprile  nothing 
less  than  the  whole  of  love,  and,  in  this  world. 
It  is  impossible ;  yet,  were  it  possible,  could  they 
have  attained  the  sum  of  knowledge  and  of  love  on 
earth  and  been  satisfied  therewith,  they  would  have 
shut  out  the  infinite  of  knowledge  and  love  beyond 
them  in  the  divine  land,  and  been,  in  their  satis- 
faction, more  hopelessly  lost  than  they  are  in 
their  present  wretchedness.  Failure  that  leaves 
an  unreached  ideal  before  the  soul  is  in  reality  a 
greater  boon  than  success  which  thinks  perfect 
satisfaction  has  been  reached.  Their  aim  at 
perfection  is  right :  what  is  wrong  is  their  view 
that  failure  is  ruin,  and  not  a  prophecy  of  a  greater 
glory  to  come.  Could  they  have  thought  perfection 
were  attained  on  earth  —  were  they  satisfied  with 
anything  this  world  can  give,  no  longer  stung  with 
hunger  for  the  infinite — all  Paradise,  with  the 
illimitable  glories,  were  closed  to  them  ! 

Few  passages  are  more  beautiful  in  English 
poetry  than  that  in  which  Aprile  narrates  his 
youthful  aspiration :  how,  loving  all  things  in- 
finitely, he  wished  to  throw  them  into  absolute 
beauty  of  form  by  means  of  all  the  arts,  for  the 
love  of  men,  and  receive  from  men  love  for  having 
revealed  beauty,  and  merge  at  last  in  God,  the 
Eternal  Love.  This  was  his  huge  aim,  his  full 
desire. 

Few  passages  are  more  pathetic  than  that  in 
which  he  tells  his  failure  and  its  cause.  "  Time 
is  short ;  the  means  of  life  are  limited ;  we  have 


132  BROWNING 

no  means  answering  to  our  desires.  Now  I  am 
wrecked  ;  for  the  multitudinous  images  of  beauty 
which  filled  my  mind  forbade  my  seizing  upon  one 
which  I  could  have  shaped.  I  often  wished  to 
give  one  to  the  world,  but  the  others  came  round 
and  baffled  me ;  and,  moreover,  I  could  not  leave 
the  multitude  of  beauty  for  the  sake  of  one  beauty. 
Unless  I  could  embody  all  I  would  embody  none. 

*'  And,  afterwards,  when  a  cry  came  from  man, 
*  Give  one  ray  even  of  your  hoarded  light  to  us,' 
and  I  tried  for  man's  sake  to  select  one,  why,  then, 
mists  came  —  old  memories  of  a  thousand  sweet- 
nesses, a  storm  of  images  — till  it  was  impossible  to 
choose ;  and  so  I  failed,  and  life  is  ended. 

*'  But  could  I  live  I  would  do  otherwise.  I  would 
give  a  trifle  out  of  beauty,  as  an  example  by  which 
men  could  guess  the  rest  and  love  it  all;  one 
strain  from  an  angel's  song ;  one  flower  from  the 
distant  land,  that  men  might  know  that  such  things 
were.  Then,  too,  I  would  put  common  life  into 
loveliness,  so  that  the  lowest  hind  would  find  me 
beside  him  to  put  his  weakest  hope  and  fear  into 
noble  language.  And  as  I  thus  lived  with  men, 
and  for  them,  I  should  win  from  them  thoughts 
fitted  for  their  progress,  the  very  commonest  of 
which  would  come  forth  in  beauty,  for  they  would 
have  been  born  in  a  soul  filled  full  of  love.  This 
should  now  be  my  aim  :  no  longer  that  desire  to 
embrace  the  whole  of  beauty  which  isolates  a  man 
from  his  fellows  ;  but  to  realise  enough  of  loveliness 
to  give  pleasure  to  men  who  desire  to  love.  There- 
fore, I  should  live,  still  aspiring  to  the  whole,  still 
uncontent,  but  waiting  for  another  life  to  gain  the 
whole  ;  but  at  the  same  time  content,  for  man's  sake. 


BROWNING'S   THEORY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    133 

to  work  within  the  Hmitations  of  life ;  not  grieving 
either  for  faikire,  because  love  given  and  received 
makes  failure  pleasure.  In  truth,  the  failure  to 
grasp  all  on  earth  makes,  if  we  love,  the  certainty 
of  a  success  beyond  the  earth." 

And  Paracelsus  listening  and  applying  what 
Aprile  says  to  his  old  desire  to  grasp,  apart  from 
men,  the  whole  of  knowledge  as  Aprile  had  desired 
to  grasp  the  whole  of  love,  learns  the  truth  at  last, 
and  confesses  it : 

Love  me  henceforth,  Aprile,  while  I  learn 
To  love ;  and,  merciful  God,  forgive  us  both! 
We  wake  at  length  from  weary  dreams  ;  but  both 
Have  slept  in  fairy-land :  though  dark  and  drear 
Appears  the  world  before  us,  we  no  less 
Wake  with  our  wrists  and  ankles  jewelled  still. 
I  too  have  sought  to  know  as  thou  to  love  — 
Excluding  love  as  thou  refusedst  knowledge. 

We  are  halves  of  a  dissevered  world,  and  we 
must  never  part  till  the  Knower  love,  and  thou,  the 
Lover,  know,  and  both  are  saved. 

"  No,  no ;  that  is  not  all,"  Aprile  answers,  and 
dies.  "  Our  perfection  is  not  in  ourselves  but  in 
God.  Not  our  strength,  but  our  weakness  is  our 
glory.  Not  in  union  with  me,  with  earthly  love 
alone,  will  you  find  the  perfect  Hfe.  I  am  not  that 
you  seek.  It  is  God  the  King  of  Love,  his  world 
beyond,  and  the  infinite  creations  Love  makes  in  it." 

But  Paracelsus  does  not  grasp  that  last  conclu- 
sion. He  only  understands  that  he  has  left  out 
love  in  his  aim,  and  therefore  failed.  He  does  not 
give  up  the  notion  of  attainment  upon  earth.  He 
cannot  lose  the  first  imprint  of  his  idea  of  himself 
—  his  lonely  grasp  of  the  whole  of  Knowledge. 

The  next  two  parts  of  the  poem  do  not  strengthen 


134  BROWNING 

much  the  main  thoughts.  Paracelsus  tries  to  work 
out  the  lesson  learnt  from  Aprile  —  to  add  love  to 
knowledge,  to  aspire  to  that  fulness  in  God.  But 
he  does  not  love  enough.  He  despises  those  who 
follow  him  for  the  sake  of  his  miracles,  yet  he 
desires  their  worship.  Moreover,  the  pride  of 
knowledge  still  clings  to  him ;  he  cannot  help 
thinking  it  higher  than  love  ;  and  the  two  together 
drive  him  into  the  thought  that  this  world  must 
give  him  satisfaction.  So,  he  puts  aside  the  ideal 
aim.  But  here  also  he  is  baffled.  Those  who 
follow  him  as  the  great  teacher  ask  of  him  signs. 
He  gives  these ;  and  he  finds  at  Basel  that  he  has 
sunk  into  the  desire  of  vulgar  fame,  and  prostituted 
his  knowledge ;  and,  sick  of  this,  beaten  back  from 
his  noble  ambitions,  he  determines  to  have  some- 
thing at  least  out  of  earth,  and  chooses  at  Colmar  the 
life  of  sensual  pleasure.  "  I  still  aspire,"  he  cries. 
"  I  will  give  the  night  to  study,  but  I  will  keep  the 
day  for  the  enjoyment  of  the  senses.  Thus, 
intellect  and  sense  woven  together,  I  shall  at  least 
have  attained  something.  If  I  do  not  gain  know- 
ledge I  shall  have  gained  sensual  pleasure.  Man 
I  despise  and  hate,  and  God  has  deceived  me. 
I  take  the  world."  But,  even  while  he  says  this, 
his  ancient  aspiration  lives  so  much  in  him  that  he 
scorns  himself  for  his  fall  as  much  as  he  scorns  the 
crowd. 

Then  comes  the  last  scene,  when,  at  Salzburg,  he 
returns  to  find  his  friend  Festus,  and  to  die.  In 
the  hour  of  his  death  he  reviews  his  whole  life,  his 
aims,  their  failure  and  the  reason  of  it,  and  yet  dies 
triumphant  for  he  has  found  the  truth. 

I    pass    over    the    pathetic    delirium   in   which 


BROWNING'S   THEORY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    135 

Paracelsus  thinks  that  Aprile  is  present,  and  cries 
for  his  hand  and  sympathy  while  Festus  is  watch- 
ing by  the  couch.  At  last  he  wakes,  and  knows  his 
friend,  and  that  he  is  dying.  "■  I  am  happy,"  he 
cries ;  "  my  foot  is  on  the  threshold  of  boundless 
life ;  I  see  the  whole  whirl  and  hurricane  of  Hfe 
behind  me ;  all  my  life  passes  by,  and  I  know 
its  purpose,  to  what  end  it  has  brought  me, 
and  whither  I  am  going.  I  will  tell  you  all  the 
meaning  of  life.  Festus,  my  friend,  tell  it  to  the 
world. 

"  There  was  a  time  when  I  was  happy ;  the 
secret  of  life  was  in  that  happiness."  "When, 
when  was  that }  "  answers  Festus,  *'  all  I  hope  that 
answer  will  decide." 

Par.  When,  but  the  time  I  vowed  myself  to  man  ? 
Fest.  Great  God,  thy  judgments  are  inscrutable  ! 

Then  he  explains.  "There  are  men,  so  majes- 
tical  is  our  nature,  who,  hungry  for  joy  and  truth, 
win  more  and  more  of  both,  and  know  that  life  is 
infinite  progress  in  God.  This  they  win  by  long 
and  slow  battle.  But  there  are  those,  of  whom  I 
was  one"  —  and  here  Browning  draws  the  man  of 
genius  —  "  who  are  born  at  the  very  point  to  which 
these  others,  the  men  of  talent,  have  painfully 
attained.  By  intuition  genius  knows,  and  I  knew 
at  once,  what  God  is,  what  we  are,  what  life  is. 
Alas  !  I  could  not  use  the  knowledge  aright.  There 
is  an  answer  to  the  passionate  longings  of  the  heart 
for  fulness,  and  I  knew  it.  And  the  answer  is  this  : 
Live  in  all  things  outside  of  yourself  by  love  and 
you  will  have  joy.  That  is  the  Hfe  of  God  ;  it  ought 
to  be  our  life.    In  him  it  is  accomplished  and  perfect ; 


136  BROWNING 

but  in  all  created  things  it  is  a  lesson  learned  slowly 
against  difficulty. 

''  Thus  I  knew  the  truth,  but  I  was  led  away 
from  it.  I  broke  down  from  thinking  of  myself, 
my  fame,  and  of  this  world.  I  had  not  love  enough, 
and  I  lost  the  truth  for  a  time.  But  whatever  my 
failures  were,  I  never  lost  sight  of  it  altogether.  I 
never  was  content  with  myself  or  with  the  earth. 
Out  of  my  misery  I  cried  for  the  joy  God  has  in 
living  outside  of  himself  in  love  of  all  things." 

Then,  thrilled  with  this  thought,  he  breaks  forth 
into  a  most  noble  description  —  new  in  English 
poetry,  new  in  feeling  and  in  thought,  enough  of 
itself  to  lift  Browning  on  to^his  lofty  peak  —  first  of 
the  joy  of  God  in  the  Universe  he  makes  incessantly 
by  pouring  out  of  himself  his  life,  and,  secondly,  of 
the  joy  of  all  things  in  God.  "Where  dwells  en- 
joyment there  is  He. "  But  every  realised  enjoyment 
looks  forward,  even  in  God,  to  a  new  and  higher 
sphere  of  distant  glory,  and  when  that  is  reached, 
to  another  sphere  beyond  — 

thus  climbs 
Pleasure  its  heights  for  ever  and  for  ever. 

Creation  is  God's  joyous  self -giving.  The  building 
of  the  frame  of  earth  was  God's  first  joy  in  Earth. 
That  made  him  conceive  a  greater  joy  —  the  joy  of 
clothing  the  earth,  of  making  life  therein  —  of  the 
love  which  in  animals,  and  last  in  man,  multiplies 
life  for  ever. 

So  there  is  progress  of  all  things  to  man,  and  all 
created  things  before  his  coming  have  —  in  beauty,  in 
power,  in  knowledge,  in  dim  shapes  of  love  and  trust 
in  the  animals  —  had  prophecies  of  him  which  man 


BROWNING'S   THEORY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    137 

has  realised,  hints  and  previsions,  dimly  picturing 
the  higher  race,  till  man  appeared  at  last,  and  one 
stage  of  being  was  complete.  But  the  law  of  pro- 
gress does  not  cease  now  man  has  come.  None  of 
his  faculties  are  perfect.  They  also  by  their  imper- 
fection suggest  a  further  life,  in  which  as  all  that 
was  unfinished  in  the  animals  suggested  man,  so 
also  that  which  is  unfinished  in  us  suggests  our- 
selves in  higher  place  and  form.  Man's  self  is  not 
yet  Man. 

We  learn  this  not  only  from  our  own  boundless 
desires  for  higher  life,  and  from  our  sense  of  im- 
perfection. We  learn  it  also  when  we  look  back 
on  the  whole  of  Nature  that  was  before  we  were. 
We  illustrate  and  illuminate  all  that  has  been. 
Nature  is  humanised,  spiritualised  by  us.  We  have 
imprinted  ourselves  on  all  things  ;  and  this,  as  we 
realise  it,  as  we  give  thought  and  passion  to  lifeless 
Nature,  makes  us  understand  how  great  we  are,  and 
how  much  greater  we  are  bound  to  be.  We  are  the 
end  of  Nature  but  not  the  end  of  ourselves.  We 
learn  the  same  truth  when  among  us  the  few  men 
of  genius  appear ;  stars  in  the  darkness.  We  do 
not  say  —  These  stand  alone  ;  we  never  can  become 
as  they.  On  the  contrary,  we  cry :  All  are  to  be 
what  these  are,  and  more.  They  longed  for  more, 
and  we  and  they  shall  have  it.  All  shall  be  per- 
fected ;  and  then,  and  not  till  then,  begins  the  new 
age  and  the  new  life,  new  progress  and  new  joy. 
This  is  the  ultimate  truth. 

And  as  in  inferior  creatures  there  were  prog- 
nostics of  man  —  and  here  Browning  repeats  him- 
self —  so  in  man  there  are  prognostics  of  the  future 
and  loftier  humanity. 


13S  BROWNING 

August  anticipations,  symbols,  types 

Of  a  dim  splcndt)ur  ever  on  before 

In  tliat  eternal  cycle  life  pursues. 

For  men  begin  to  pass  their  nature's  bound  — 

ceaselessly  outgrowing  themselves  in  history,  and 
in  the  individual  life  —  and  some,  passionately  aspir- 
ing, run  ahead  of  even  the  general  tendency,  and 
conceive  the  very  highest,  and  live  to  reveal  it, 
and  in  revealing  it  lift  and  save  those  who  do  not 
conceive  it. 

"I,  Paracelsus,"  he  cries  —  and  now  Browning 
repeats  the  whole  argument  of  the  poem  —  ''  was 
one  of  these.  To  do  this  I  vowed  myself,  soul 
and  limb. 

"  But  I  mistook  my  means,  I  took  the  wrong  path, 
led  away  by  pride.  I  gazed  on  power  alone,  and 
on  power  won  by  knowledge  alone.  This  I  thought 
was  the  only  note  and  aim  of  man,  and  it  was  to  be 
won,  at  once  and  in  the  present,  without  any  care 
for  all  that  man  had  already  done.  I  rejected  all 
the  past.  I  despised  it  as  a  record  of  weakness 
and  disgrace.  Man  should  be  all-sufficient  now ; 
a  single  day  should  bring  him  to  maturity.  He  has 
power  to  reach  the  whole  of  knowledge  at  one 
leap. 

"  In  that,  I  mistook  the  conditions  of  life.  I  did 
not  see  our  barriers  ;  nor  that  progress  is  slow  ;  nor 
that  every  step  of  the  past  is  necessary  to  know 
and  to  remember  ;  nor  that,  in  the  shade  of  the  past, 
the  present  stands  forth  bright ;  nor  that  the  future 
is  not  to  be  all  at  once,  but  to  dawn  on  us,  in  zone 
after  zone  of  quiet  progress.  I  strove  to  laugh 
down  all  the  limits  of  our  life,  and  then  the  smallest 
things  broke  me  down  —  me,  who  tried  to  realise  the 


BROWNING'S   THEORY  OF  HUMAN  LIFE    139 

impossible  on  earth.  At  last  I  knew  that  the  power 
I  sought  was  only  God's,  and  then  I  prayed  to  die. 
All  my  life  was  failure. 

"  At  this  crisis  I  met  Aprile,  and  learned  my 
deep  mistake.  I  had  left  love  out;  and  love  and 
knowledge,  and  power  through  knowledge,  must 
go  together.  And  Aprile  had  also  failed,  for  he 
had  sought  love  and  rejected  knowledge.  Life  can 
only  move  when  both  are  hand  in  hand : 

"  love  preceding 
Power,  and  with  much  power,  always  much  more  love : 
Love  still  too  straitened  in  its  present  means, 
And  earnest  for  new  power  to  set  love  free. 
I  learned  this,  and  supposed  the  whole  was  learned. 

"  But  to  learn  it,  and  to  fulfil  it,  are  two  different 
things.  I  taught  the  simple  truth,  but  men  would 
not  have  it.  They  sought  the  complex,  the  sensa- 
tional, the  knowledge  which  amazed  them.  And 
for  this  knowledge  they  praised  me.  I  loathed  and 
despised  their  praise  ;  and  when  I  would  not  give 
them  more  of  the  signs  and  wonders  I  first  gave 
them,  they  avenged  themselves  by  casting  shame 
on  my  real  knowledge.  Then  I  was  tempted,  and 
became  the  charlatan  ;  and  yet  despised  myself  for 
seeking  man's  praise  for  that  which  was  most  con- 
temptible in  me.  Then  I  sought  for  wild  pleasure 
in  the  senses,  and  I  hated  myself  still  more.  And 
hating  myself  I  came  to  hate  men  ;  and  then  all  that 
Aprile  taught  to  me  was  lost. 

''  But  now  I  know  that  I  did  not  love  enough  to 
trace  beneath  the  hate  of  men  their  love.  I  did  not 
love  enough  to  see  in  their  follies  the  grain  of 
divine  wisdom. 


I40  BROWNING 

"To  see  a  good  in  evil,  and  a  hope 
In  ill-success  ;  to  sympathise,  be  proud 
Of  their  half-reasons,  faint  aspirings,  dim 
Struggles  for  truth,  their  poorest  fallacies, 
Their  prejudice  and  fears  and  cares  and  doubts  ; 
All  with  a  touch  of  nobleness,  despite 
Their  error,  upward  tending  all  though  weak. 

**  I  did  not  see  this,  I  did  not  love  enough  to  see 
this,  and  I  failed. 

"■  Therefore  let  men  regard  me,  who  rashly  longed 
to  know  all  for  power's  sake;  and  regard  Aprile,  the 
poet,  who  rashly  longed  for  the  whole  of  love  for 
beauty's  sake  —  and  regarding  both,  shape  forth  a 
third  and  better-tempered  spirit,  in  whom  beauty 
and  knowledge,  love  and  power,  shall  mingle  into 
one,  and  lead  Man  up  to  God,  in  whom  all  these 
four  are  One.     In  God  alone  is  the  goal. 

"  Meanwhile  I  die  in  peace,  secure  of  attainment. 
What  I  have  failed  in  here  I  shall  attain  there.  I 
have  never,  in  my  basest  hours,  ceased  to  aspire ; 
God  will  fulfil  my  aspiration  : 

"  If  I  stoop 
Into  a  dark  tremendous  sea  of  cloud, 
It  is  but  for  a  time ;  I  press  God's  lamp 
Close  to  my  breast ;  its  splendour,  soon  or  late, 
Will  pierce  the  gloom :  I  shall  emerge  one  day. 
You  understand  me  ?     I  have  said  enough  ? 

Aprile  !    Hand  in  hand  with  you,  Aprile  ! " 
And  so  he  dies. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  POET  OF  ART 

THE  theory  of  human  life  which  Browning  con- 
ceived, and  which  I  attempted  in  the  last 
chapter  to  explain  out  of  Pauline  and  Paracelsus^ 
underlies  the  poems  which  have  to  do  with  the  arts. 
Browning  as  the  poet  of  Art  is  as  fascinating  a 
subject  as  Browning  the  poet  of  Nature;  even 
more  so,  for  he  directed  of  set  purpose  a  great  deal 
of  his  poetry  to  the  various  arts,  especially  to  music 
and  painting.  Nor  has  he  neglected  to  write  about 
his  own  art.  The  lover  in  Pauline  is  a  poet. 
Paracelsus  and  Aprile  have  both  touched  that  art. 
Sordello  is  a  poet,  and  so  are  many  others  in  the 
poems.  Moreover,  he  treats  continually  of  himself 
as  a  poet,  and  of  the  many  criticisms  on  his  work. 
All  through  this  work  on  the  arts,  the  theory  of 
which  we  have  written  appears  continuously.  It 
emerges  fully  in  the  close  of  Easter-Day.  It  is 
carefully  wrought  into  poems  like  Abt  Vogler  and 
A  Graminaria7i' s  Funeral,  in  which  the  pursuit  of 
grammar  is  conceived  of  as  the  pursuit  of  an  art. 
It  is  introduced  by  the  way  in  the  midst  of  subjects 
belonging  to  the  art  of  painting,  as  in  Old  Pictures 
in  Florence  and  Andrea  del  Sarto.  Finally,  in  those 
poems  which  represent  in  vivid  colour  and  selected 

141 


X42  BROWNING 

personalities  special  times  and  forms  of  art,  the 
theory  still  appears,  but  momentarily,  as  a  dryad 
might  show  her  face  in  a  wood  to  a  poet  passing  by. 
I  shall  be  obliged  then  to  touch  again  and  again  on 
this  theory  of  his  in  discussing  Browning  as  the 
poet  of  the  arts.  This  is  a  repetition  which  cannot 
be  helped,  but  for  which  I  request  the  pardon  of 
my  readers. 

The  subject  of  the  arts,  from  the  time  when 
Caliban  "  fell  to  make  something  "  to  the  re-birth  of 
naturahsm  in  Florence,  from  the  earliest  music  and 
poetry  to  the  latest,  interested  Browning  profoundly; 
and  he  speaks  of  them,  not  as  a  critic  from  the  out- 
side, but  out  of  the  soul  of  them,  as  an  artist.  He 
is,  for  example,  the  only  poet  of  the  nineteenth 
century  till  we  come  to  Rossetti,  who  has  cele- 
brated painting  and  sculpture  by  the  art  of  poetry  ; 
and  Rossetti  did  not  link  these  arts  to  human  life 
and  character  with  as  much  force  and  penetration  as 
Browning.  Morris,  when  he  wrote  poetry,  did  not 
care  to  write  about  the  other  arts,  their  schools  or 
history.  He  liked  to  describe  in  verse  the  beautiful 
things  of  the  past,  but  not  to  argue  on  their  how  and 
why.  Nor  did  he  ever  turn  in  on  himself  as  artist, 
and  ask  how  he  wrote  poetry  or  how  he  built 
up  a  pattern.  What  he  did  as  artist  was  to  make^ 
and  when  he  had  made  one  thing  to  make  another. 
He  ran  along  like  Pheidippides  to  his  goal,  without 
halting  for  one  instant  to  consider  the  methods  of 
his  running.  And  all  his  life  long  this  was  his 
way. 

Rossetti  described  a  picture  in  a  sonnet  with 
admirable  skill,  so  admirable  that  we  say  to  our- 
selves —  *'  Give  me  the  picture  or  the  sonnet,  not 


THE  POET  OF  ART  143 

both.  They  blot  out  one  another."  But  to  de- 
scribe a  picture  is  not  to  write  about  art.  The 
one  place  where  he  does  go  down  to  its  means  and 
soul  is  in  his  little  prose  masterpiece,  Hand  and 
Sottl,  in  which  we  see  the  path,  the  goal,  the 
passion,  but  not  the  power  of  art.  But  he  never, 
in  thought,  got,  like  Browning,  to  the  bottom-joy 
of  it.  He  does  not  seem  to  see,  as  clearly  as 
Browning  saw,  that  the  source  of  all  art  was  love ; 
and  that  the  expression  of  love  in  beautiful  form 
was  or  ought  to  be  accomplished  with  that  exult- 
ing joy  which  is  the  natural  child  of  self-forgetful- 
ness.  This  story  of  Rossetti's  was  in  prose.  In 
poetry,  Rossetti,  save  in  description  from  the  out- 
side, left  art  alone ;  and  Browning's  special  work 
on  art,  and  particularly  his  poetic  studies  of  it,  are 
isolated  in  English  poetry,  and  separate  him  from 
other  poets. 

I  cannot  wish  that  he  had  thought  less  and 
written  less  about  other  arts  than  poetry.  But  I 
do  wish  he  had  given  more  time  and  trouble  to  his 
own  art,  that  we  might  have  had  clearer  and  lovelier 
poetry.  Perhaps,  if  he  had  developed  himself  with 
more  care  as  an  artist  in  his  own  art,  he  would  not 
have  troubled  himself  or  his  art  by  so  much  devo- 
tion to  abstract  thinking  and  intellectual  analysis. 
A  strange  preference  also  for  naked  facts  some- 
times beset  him,  as  if  men  wanted  these  from  a 
poet.  It  was  as  if  some  scientific  demon  entered 
into  him  for  a  time  and  turned  poetry  out,  till 
Browning  got  weary  of  his  guest  and  threw  him 
out  of  the  window.  These  reversions  to  some  far 
off  Browning  in  the  past,  who  was  deceived  into 
thinking  the  intellect  the  king  of  life,  enfeebled  and 


144  BROWNING 

sometimes  destroyed  the  artist  in  him;  and  though 
he  escaped  for  the  best  part  of  his  poetry  from 
this  position,  it  was  not  seldom  in  his  later  years 
as  a  brand  plucked  from  the  burning.  Moreover, 
he  recognised  this  tendency  in  himself ;  and  pro- 
tested against  it,  sometimes  humorously,  sometimes 
seriously.  At  least  so  I  read  what  he  means  in  a 
number  of  poems,  when  he  turns,  after  an  over- 
wrought piece  of  analysis,  upon  himself,  and  bursts 
out  of  his  cobwebs  into  a  solution  of  the  question  by 
passion  and  imagination.  Nevertheless  the  charm 
of  this  merely  intellectual  play  pulled  at  him  con- 
tinually, and  as  he  could  always  embroider  it  with 
fancy  it  seemed  to  him  close  to  imagination ;  and 
this  belief  grew  upon  him  as  he  got  farther  away 
from  the  warmth  and  natural  truth  of  youth.  It  is 
the  melancholy  tendency  of  some  artists,  as  they 
feel  the  weakness  of  decay,  to  become  scientific ; 
and  a  fatal  temptation  it  is.  There  is  one  poem  of 
his  in  which  he  puts  the  whole  matter  clearly  and 
happily,  with  a  curious  and  suggestive  title,  "  Trans- 
cendentalism:  A  Poem  in  Twelve  Books." 

He  speaks  to  a  young  poet  who  will  give  to 
men  "  naked  thought,  good,  true,  treasurable  stuff, 
solid  matter,  without  imaginative  imagery,  without 
emotion." 

Thought's  what  they  mean  by  verse,  and  seek  in  verse. 

Boys  seek  for  images  and  melody, 

Men  must  have  reason  —  so,  you  aim  at  men. 

It  is  ''  quite  otherwise,"  Browning  tells  him,  and  he 
illustrates  the  matter  by  a  story. 

Jacob  Bohme  did  not  care  for  plants.  All  he 
cared  for  was  his  mysticism.     But  one  day,  as  if 


THE  POET  OF  ART  145 

the  magic  of  poetry  had  shpped  into  his  soul,  he 
heard  all  the  plants  talking,  and  talking  to  him ; 
and  behold,  he  loved  them  and  knew  what  they 
meant.  Imagination  had  done  more  for  him  than 
all  his  metaphysics.  So  we  give  up  our  days  to 
collating  theory  with  theory,  criticising,  philoso- 
phising, till,  one  morning,  we  wake  ''  and  find  Ufe's 
summer  past." 

What  remedy  1  What  hope  ?  Why,  a  brace  of 
rhymes  !  And  then,  in  life,  that  miracle  takes  place 
which  John  of  Halberstadt  did  by  his  magic.  We 
feel  like  a  child  ;  the  world  is  new ;  every  bit  of  life 
is  run  over  and  enchanted  by  the  wild  rose. 

And  in  there  breaks  the  sudden  rose  herself, 
Over  us,  under,  round  us  every  side. 
Nay,  in  and  out  the  tables  and  the  chairs 
And  musty  volumes,  Bohme's  book  and  all  — 
Buries  us  with  a  glory,  young  once  more. 
Pouring:  heaven  into  this  shut  house  of  life. 

So  come,  the  harp  back  to  your  heart  again  ! 

I  return,  after  this  introduction,  to  Browning's 
doctrine  of  life  as  it  is  connected  with  the  arts.  It 
appears  with  great  clearness  in  Easter-Day.  He 
tells  of  an  experience  he  had  when,  one  night, 
musing  on  life,  and  wondering  how  it  would  be 
with  him  were  he  to  die  and  be  judged  in  a 
moment,  he  walked  on  the  wild  common  outside  the 
little  Dissenting  Chapel  he  had  previously  visited 
on  Christmas-Eve  and  thought  of  the  Judgment. 
And  Common-sense  said :  "  You  have  done  your 
best ;  do  not  be  dismayed  ;  you  will  only  be  sur- 
prised, and  when  the  shock  is  over  you  will  smile  at 
your  fear."  And  as  he  thought  thus  the  whole  sky 
became   a   sea   of   fire.      A   fierce   and  vindictive 


146  BROWNING 

scribble  of  red  quick  flame  ran  across  it,  and  the 
universe  was  burned  away.  *'  And  I  knew,"  thought 
Browning,  "now  that  Judgment  had  come,  that  I 
had  chosen  this  world,  its  beauty,  its  knowledge, 
its  good  —  that,  though  I  often  looked  above,  yet  to 
renounce  utterly  the  beauty  of  this  earth  and  man 
was  too  hard  for  me."  And  a  voice  came  :  ''Eternity 
is  here,  and  thou  art  judged."  And  then  Christ 
stood  before  him  and  said  :  "  Thou  hast  preferred  the 
finite  when  the  infinite  was  in  thy  power.  Earthly 
joys  were  palpable  and  tainted.  The  heavenly  joys 
flitted  before  thee,  faint,  and  rare,  and  taintless. 
Thou  hast  chosen  those  of  this  world.  They  are 
thine." 

**  O  rapture  !  is  this  the  Judgment }  Earth's 
exquisite  treasures  of  wonder  and  delight  for  me  !  " 
"  So  soon  made  happy,"  said  the  voice.  "  The 
loveliness  of  earth  is  but  like  one  rose  flung  from 
the  Eden  whence  thy  choice  has  excluded  thee. 
The  wonders  of  earth  are  but  the  tapestry  of  the 
ante-chamber  in  the  royal  house  thou  hast  aban- 
doned." 

All  partial  beauty  was  a  pledge 

Of  beauty  in  its  plenitude  : 

But  since  the  pledge  sufficed  thy  mood, 

Retain  it!  plenitude  be  theirs 

Who  looked  above ! 

'' O  sharp  despair!  but  since  the  joys  of  earth 
fail  me,  I  take  art.  Art  gives  worth  to  Nature ;  it 
stamps  it  with  man.  I'll  take  the  Greek  sculpture, 
the  perfect  painting  of  Italy  —  that  world  is  mine  !  " 

"Then  obtain  it,"  said  the  voice:  "the  one 
abstract  form,  the  one  face  with  its  one  look  —  all 
they  could  manage.     Shall  I,  the  illimitable  beauty. 


THE  POET  OF  ART  147 

be  judged  by  these  single  forms?  What  of  that 
perfection  in  their  souls  these  artists  were  conscious 
of,  inconceivably  exceeding  all  they  did  ?  What  of 
their  failure  which  told  them  an  inimitable  beauty 
was  before  them  ?  What  of  Michael  Angelo  now, 
who  did  not  choose  the  world's  success  or  earth's 
perfection,  and  who  now  is  on  the  breast  of  the  Di- 
vine? All  the  beauty  of  art  is  but  furniture  for  Hfe's 
first  stage.  Take  it  then.  But  there  are  those,  my 
saints,  who  were  not  content,  Hke  thee,  with  earth's 
scrap  of  beauty,  but  desired  the  whole.  They  are 
now  filled  with  it.  Take  thy  one  jewel  of  beauty 
on  the  beach  ;  lose  all  I  had  for  thee  in  the  bound- 
less ocean." 

"Then  I  take  mind;  earth's  knowledge  carries 
me  beyond  the  finite.  Through  circling  sciences, 
philosophies,  and  histories  I  will  spin  with  rapture  ; 
and  if  these  fail  to  inspire,  I  will  fly  to  verse,  and 
in  its  dew  and  fire  break  the  chain  which  binds  me 
to  the  earth;  —  nay,  answer  me  not,  I  know  what 
Thou  wilt  say  :  What  is  highest  in  knowledge,  even 
those  fine  intuitions  which  lead  the  finite  into  the 
infinite,  and  which  are  best  put  in  noble  verse,  are 
but  gleams  of  a  light  beyond  them,  sparks  from  the 
sum  of  the  whole.  I  give  that  world  up  also,  and 
I  take  Love.     All  I  ask  is  leave  to  love." 

*'Ah,"  said  the  voice,  "is  this  thy  final  choice? 
Love  is  the  best;  'tis  somewhat  late.  Yet  all 
the  power  and  beauty,  nature  and  art  and  know- 
ledge of  this  earth  were  only  worth  because  of 
love.  Through  them  infinite  love  called  to  thee; 
and  even  now  thou  clingest  to  earth's  love  as  all. 
It  is  precious,  but  it  exists  to  bear  thee  beyond  the 
love  of  earth  into  the  boundless  love  of  God  in  me." 


148  BROWNING 

At  last,  beaten  to  his  last  fortress,  all  broken  down, 

he  cries : 

Thou  Love  of  God  !     Or  let  me  die, 

Or  grant  what  shall  seem  heaven  almost! 

Let  me  not  know  that  all  is  lost, 

Though  lost  it  be  —  leave  me  not  tied 

To  this  despair  —  this  corpse-like  bride! 

Let  that  old  life  seem  mine  —  no  more  — 

With  limitation  as  before. 

With  darkness,  hunger,  toil,  distress  : 

Be  all  the  earth  a  wilderness ! 

Only  let  me  go  on,  go  on, 

Still  hoping  ever  and  anon 

To  reach  one  eve  the  Better  Land  ! 

This  is  put  more  strongly,  as  in  the  line :  *'  Be 
all  the  earth  a  wilderness  !  "  than  Browning  himself 
would  have  put  it.  But  he  is  in  the  passion  of  the 
man  who  speaks,  and  heightens  the  main  truth  into 
an  extreme.  But  the  theory  is  there,  and  it  is 
especially  applied  to  the  love  of  beauty  and  there- 
fore to  the  arts.  The  illustrations  are  taken  from 
music  and  painting,  from  sculpture  and  poetry. 
Only  in  dwelling  too  exclusively,  as  perhaps  the 
situation  demands,  on  the  renunciation  of  this 
world's  successes,  he  has  left  out  that  part  of  his 
theory  which  demands  that  we  should,  accepting 
our  limits,  work  within  them  for  the  love  of  man, 
but  learn  from  their  pressure  and  pain  to  transcend 
them  always  in  the  desire  of  infinite  perfection. 
In  Rabbi  Beji  Ezra,  a  masterpiece  of  argumentative 
and  imaginative  passion  —  such  a  poem  as  only 
Browning  could  have  written,  who,  more  than  other 
poets,  equalised,  when  most  inspired,  reasoning, 
emotions,  and  intuitions  into  one  material  for  poetry 
—  he  applies  this  view  of  his  to  the  whole  of 
man's  life  here  and  in  the  world  to  come,  when  the 


THE  POET  OF  ART  149 

Rabbi  in  the  quiet  of  old  age  considers  what  his 
life  has  been,  and  how  God  has  wrought  him 
through  it  for  eternity.  But  I  leave  that  poem, 
which  has  nothing  to  do  with  art,  for  Abt  Vogler, 
which  is  dedicated  to  music. 

"  When  Solomon  pronounced  the  Name  of  God, 
all  the  spirits,  good  and  bad,  assembled  to  do  his 
will  and  build  his  palace.     And  when  I,  Abt  Vogler, 
touched  the  keys,  I  called  the  Spirits  of  Sound  to 
me,  and  they  have  built  my  palace  of  music ;  and 
to  inhabit  it  all  the  Great  Dead  came  back,  till  in 
the  vision  I  made  a  perfect   music.     Nay,  for   a 
moment,  I  touched  in  it  the  infinite  perfection  ;  but 
now  it  is  gone ;  I   cannot  bring  it  back.     Had  I 
painted  it,  had  I  written  it,  I  might  have  explained  it. 
But  in  music,  out  of  the  sounds  something  emerges 
which  is  above  the  sounds,  and  that  ineffable  thing 
I  touched  and  lost.     I  took  the  well-known  sounds 
of  earth,  and  out  of  them  came  a  fourth  sound,  nay, 
not  a  sound  —  but  a  star.     This  was  a  flash  of  God's 
will  which  opened  the  Eternal  to  me  for  a  moment; 
and  I  shall  find  it  again  in  the  eternal  life.     There- 
fore, from  the  achievement  of  earth  and  the  failure 
of  it,  I  turn  to  God,  and  in  him  I  see  that  every 
image,  thought,  impulse,  and  dream  of  knowledge  or 
of  beauty  —  which,  coming  whence  we  know  not,  flit 
before  us  in  human  Hfe,  breathe  for  a  moment,  and 
then  depart ;  which,  like  my  music,  build  a  sudden 
palace  in  imagination;  which  abide  for  an  instant 
and  dissolve,  but  which  memory  and  hope  retain  as 
a  ground  of  aspiration  —  are  not  lost  to  us  though 
they  seem  to  die  in  their  immediate  passage.     Their 
music  has  its  home  in  the  Will    of   God  and   we 
shall  find  them  completed  there." 


150  BROWNING 

All  we  have  willed  or  hoped  or  dreamed  of  good  shall  exist; 

Not  its  semblance,  but  itself;  no  beauty,  nor  good,  nor  power 
Whose  voice  has  gone  forth,  but  each  survives  for  the  melodist 

When  eternity  affirms  the  conception  of  an  hour. 
The  high  that  proved  too  high,  the  heroic  for  earth  too  hard, 

The  passion  that  left  the  ground  to  lose  itself  in  the  sky, 
Are  music  sent  up  to  God  by  the  lover  and  the  bard  ; 

Enough  that  he  heard  it  once :  we  shall  hear  it  by-and-by. 

4c  *  *  *  x<  * 

Well,  it  is  earth  with  me  ;  silence  resumes  her  reign : 
I  will  be  patient  and  proud,  and  soberly  acquiesce. 
Give  me  the  keys.     I  feel  for  the  common  chord  again, 
Sliding  by  semitones,  till  I  sink  to  the  minor,  —  yes, 
And  I  blunt  it  into  a  ninth,  and  I  stand  on  alien  ground, 
Surveying  awhile  the  heights  I  rolled  from  into  the  deep ; 
Which,  hark,  I  have  dared  and  done,  for  my  resting-place  is 
found, 
The  C  Major  of  this  life  :  so,  now  I  will  try  to  sleep. 

With  that  he  returns  to  human  Hfe,  content  to 
labour  in  its  limits  —  the  common  chord  is  his. 
But  he  has  been  where  he  shall  be,  and  he  is  not 
likely  to  be  satisfied  with  the  C  major  of  Hfe. 
This,  in  Browning's  thought,  is  the  true  comfort 
and  strength  of  the  life  of  the  artist,  to  whom  these 
fallings  from  us,  vanishings,  these  transient  visits 
of  the  infinite  Divine,  like  swallows  that  pass  in  full 
flight,  are  more  common  than  to  other  men.  They 
tell  him  of  the  unspeakable  beauty  ;  they  let  loose 
his  spirit  to  fly  into  the  third  heaven. 

So  much  for  the  theory  in  this  poem.  As  to  the 
artist  and  his  art  in  it,  that  is  quite  a  different 
matter ;  and  as  there  are  few  of  Browning's  poems 
which  reach  a  higher  level  than  this  both  in  form, 
thought,  and  spiritual  passion,  it  may  be  worth 
while,  for  once,  to  examine  a  poem  of  his  at  large. 

Browning's  imagination  conceived  in  a  moment 
the  musician's  experience  from  end  to  end ;  and  the 


THE  POET  OF  ART  151 

form  of  the  experience  arose  along  with  the  con- 
ception. He  saw  Abt  Vogler  in  the  silent  church, 
playing  to  himself  before  the  golden  towers  of  the 
organ,  and  slipping  with  sudden  surprise  into  a 
strain  which  is  less  his  than  God's.  He  saw  the 
vision  which  accompanied  the  music,  and  the  man's 
heart  set  face  to  face  with  the  palace  of  music  he 
had  built.  He  saw  him  live  in  it  and  then  pass 
to  heaven  with  it  and  lose  it.  And  he  saw  the 
close  of  the  experience,  with  all  its  scenery  in  the 
church  and  in  Abt  Vogler's  heart,  at  the  same  time, 
in  one  vision.  In  this  unconscious  shaping  of  his 
thought  into  a  human  incident,  with  its  soul  and 
scenery,  is  the  imagination  creating,  like  a  god,  a 
thing  unknown,  unseen  before. 

Having  thus  shaped  the  form,  the  imagination 
passed  on  to  make  the  ornament.  It  creates  that 
far-off  image  of  Solomon  and  his  spirits  building 
their  palace  for  the  Queen  of  Sheba  which  exalts  the 
whole  conception  and  enlarges  the  reader's  imagi- 
nation through  all  the  legends  of  the  great  King— 
and  then  it  makes,  for  fresh  adornment,  the  splendid 
piling  up  of  the  sounds  into  walls  of  gold,  pinnacles, 
splendours  and  meteor  moons;  and  lastly,  with 
upward  sweeping  of  its  wings,  bids  the  sky  to  fall 
in  love  with  the  glory  of  the  palace,  and  the  mighty 
forms  of  the  noble  Dead  to  walk  in  it.  This  is 
the  imagination  at  play  with  its  conception,  adorn- 
ing, glorifying,  heightening  the  full  impression,  but 
keeping  every  imaged  ornament  misty,  impalpable, 
as  in  a  dream  —for  so  the  conception  demanded. 

And  then,  to  fill  the  conception  with  the  spirit  of 
humanity,  the  personal  passion  of  the  poet  rises 
and   falls  through   the  description,  as   the   music 


152  BROWNING 

rises  and  falls.  We  feel  his  breast  beating  against 
ours ;  till  the  time  comes  when,  like  a  sudden 
change  in  a  great  song,  his  emotion  changes  into 
ecstasy  in  the  outburst  of  the  9th  verse  : 

Therefore  to  whom  turn  I  but  to  thee,  the  ineffable  Name? 

It  almost  brings  tears  into  the  eyes.  This  is  art- 
creation —  this  is  what  imagination,  intense  emo- 
tion, and  individuahty  have  made  of  the  material  of 
thought  —  poetry,  not  prose. 

Even  at  the  close,  the  conception,  the  imagina- 
tion, and  the  personal  passion  keep  their  art.  The 
rush  upwards  of  the  imaginative  feeling  dies  slowly 
away ;  it  is  as  evanescent  as  the  Vision  of  the 
Palace,  but  it  dies  into  another  picture  of  humanity 
which  even  more  deeply  engages  the  human  heart. 
Browning  sees  the  organ-loft  now  silent  and  dark, 
and  the  silent  figure  in  it,  alone  and  bowed  over 
the  keys.  The  church  is  still,  but  aware  of  what 
has  been.  The  golden  pipes  of  the  organ  are  lost 
in  the  twilight  and  the  music  is  over  —  all  the 
double  vision  of  the  third  heaven  into  which  he 
has  been  caught  has  vanished  away.  The  form 
of  the  thing  rightly  fits  the  idea.  Then,  when  the 
form  is  shaped,  the  poet  fills  it  with  the  deep 
emotion  of  the  musician's  soul,  and  then  with  his 
own  emotion  ;  and  close  as  the  air  to  the  earth  are 
the  sorrow  and  exultation  of  Abt  Vogler  and 
Browning  to  the  human  heart  —  sorrow  for  the 
vanishing  and  the  failure,  exultant  joy  because  what 
has  been  is  but  an  image  of  the  infinite  beauty 
they  will  have  in  God.  In  the  joy  they  do  not 
sorrow  for  the  failure.  It  is  nothing  but  an  omen  of 
success.     Their  soul,  greater  than  the  vision,  takes 


THE  POET  OF  ART  153 

up  common  life  with  patience  and  silent  hope.  We 
hear  them  sigh  and  strike  the  chord  of  C. 

This  is  lyric  imagination  at  work  in  lyric 
poetry.  There  are  two  kinds  of  lyrics  among 
many  others.  One  is  where  the  strong  emotion  of 
the  poet,  fusing  all  his  materials  into  one  creation, 
comes  to  a  height  and  then  breaks  off  suddenly. 
It  is  like  a  thunderstorm,  which,  doubling  and  re- 
doubling its  flash  and  roar,  ends  in  the  zenith  with 
the  brightest  flash  and  loudest  clang  of  thunder. 
There  is  another  kind.  It  is  when  the  storm  of 
emotion  reaches,  like  the  first,  its  climax,  but  does 
not  end  with  it.  The  lyric  passion  dies  slowly 
away  from  the  zenith  to  the  horizon,  and  ends  in 
quietude  and  beauty,  attended  by  soft  colour  and 
gentle  sounds ;  like  the  thunderstorm  which  faints 
with  the  sunset  and  gathers  its  clouds  to  be  adorned 
with  beauty.  This  lyric  of  Browning's  is  a  noble 
example  of  the  second  type. 

I  take  another  poem,  the  Grammarian' s  Fime7'al, 
to  illustrate  his  art.  The  main  matter  of  thought 
in  it  is  the  same  as  that  of  Abt  Voglcr^  with  the 
variation  that  the  central  figure  is  not  a  musician 
but  a  grammarian ;  that  what  he  pursued  was  critical 
knowledge,  not  beauty,  and  that  he  is  not  a  modern, 
like  Abt  Vogler,  but  one  of  the  Renaissance  folk, 
and  seized,  as  men  were  seized  then,  with  that 
insatiable  curiosity  which  characterised  the  outbreak 
of  the  New  Learning.  The  matter  of  thought  in  it 
is  of  less  interest  to  us  than  the  poetic  creation 
wrought  out  of  it,  or  than  the  art  with  which  it  is 
done.  We  see  the  form  into  which  the  imaginative 
conception  is  thrown  —  the  group  of  sorrowing 
students  carrying  their  master's  corpse  to  the  high 


154  BROWNING 

platform  of  the  mountain,  singing  what  he  was,  in 
admiration  and  honour  and  delight  that  he  had 
mastered  life  and  won  eternity  ;  a  conception  full  of 
humanity,  as  full  of  the  life  of  the  dead  master's  soul 
as  of  the  students'  enthusiasm.  This  thrills  us  into 
creation,  with  the  poet,  as  we  read.  Then  the  im- 
agination which  has  made  the  conception  into  form 
adorns  it.  It  creates  the  plain,  the  encircling  moun- 
tains, one  cloudy  peak  higher  than  the  rest ;  as  we 
mount  we  look  on  the  plain  below ;  we  reach  the 
city  on  the  hill,  pass  it,  and  climb  the  hill-top ; 
there  are  all  the  high-flying  birds,  the  meteors,  the 
lightnings,  the  thickest  dew.  And  we  lay  our  dead 
on  the  peak,  above  the  plain.  This  is  the  scenery, 
the  imaginative  ornament,  and  all  through  it  we  are 
made  to  hear  the  chant  of  the  students ;  and  so 
lifting  is  the  melody  of  the  verse  we  seem  to  taste 
the  air,  fresher  and  fresher  as  we  climb.  Then, 
finally,  into  the  midst  of  this  flows  for  us  the  eager 
intensity  of  the  scholar.  Dead  as  he  is,  we  feel 
him  to  be  alive ;  never  resting,  pushing  on  inces- 
santly, beating  failure  beneath  his  feet,  making  it 
the  step  for  further  search  for  the  infinite,  resolute 
to  live  in  the  dull  limits  of  the  present  work,  but 
never  content  save  in  waiting  for  that  eternity 
which  will  fulfil  the  failure  of  earth  ;  which,  missing 
earth's  success,  throws  itself  on  God,  dying  to  gain 
the  highest.  This  is  the  passion  of  the  poem,  and 
Browning  is  in  it  like  a  fire.  It  was  his  own,  his 
very  life.  He  pours  it  into  the  students  who  re- 
joice in  the  death  of  their  master,  and  he  gives  it  to 
us  as  we  read  the  poem.  And  then,  because  con- 
ception, imagination,  and  intensity  of  thought  and 
emotion  all  here  work  together,  as  in  Abt  Vogler, 


THE  POET  OF  ART  155 

the  melody  of  the  poem  is  lovely,  save  in  one  verse 
which  ought  to  be  out  of  the  poem.  As  to  the 
conclusion,  it  is  priceless.  Such  a  conclusion  can 
only  emerge  when  all  that  precedes  it  finely  con- 
tains it,  and  I  have  often  thought  that  it  pictures 
Browning  himself.  I  wish  he  had  been  buried 
on  a  mountain-top,  all  Italy  below  him. 

Well,  here's  the  platform,  here's  the  proper  place : 

Hail  to  your  purlieus, 
All  ye  high-flyers  of  the  feathered  race, 

Swallows  and  curlews  ! 
Here's  the  top-peak  ;  the  multitude  below 

Live,  for  they  can,  there  : 
This  man  decided  not  to  Live  but  Know  — 

Bury  this  man  there  ? 

Here  —  here's  his  place,  where  meteors  shoot,  clouds  form, 

Lightnings  are  loosened. 
Stars  come  and  go  !     Let  joy  break  with  the  storm, 

Peace  let  the  dew  send  ! 
Lofty  designs  must  close  in  like  effects  : 

Loftily  lying. 
Leave  him  —  still  loftier  than  the  world  suspects. 

Living  and  dying. 

This  is  the  artist  at  work,  and  I  doubt  whether 
all  the  laborious  prose  written,  in  history  and 
criticism,  on  the  revival  of  learning,  will  ever  ex- 
press better  than  this  short  poem  the  inexhaust- 
ible thirst  of  the  Renaissance  in  its  pursuit  of 
knowledge,  or  the  enthusiasm  of  the  pupils  of  a 
New  Scholar  for  his  desperate  strife  to  know  in  a 
short  life  the  very  centre  of  the  Universe. 

Another  poem  on  the  arts  which  is  mixed  up 
with  Browning's  theory  of  life  is  Andrea  del  Sarto. 
Into  it  the  theory  sHps,  Hke  an  uninvited  guest  into 
a  dinner-party  of  whom  it  is  felt  that  he  has  some 
relation  to  some  one  of  the  guests,  but  for  whom 


156  BROWNING 

no  cover  is  laid.  The  faulty  and  broken  life  of 
Andrea,  in  its  contrast  with  his  flawless  drawing, 
has  been  a  favourite  subject  with  poets.  Alfred 
de  Musset  and  others  have  dramatised  it,  and  it 
seems  strange  that  none  of  our  soul- wrecking  and 
vivisecting  novelists  have  taken  it  up  for  their 
amusement.  Browning  has  not  left  out  a  single 
point  of  the  subject.  The  only  criticism  I  should 
make  of  this  admirable  poem  is  that,  when  we 
come  to  the  end,  we  dislike  the  woman  and  despise 
the  man  more  than  we  pity  either  of  them  ;  and  in 
tragic  art-work  of  a  fine  quality,  pity  for  human 
nature  with  a  far-off  tenderness  in  it  should  remain 
as  the  most  lasting  impression.  All  the  greater 
artists,  even  while  they  went  to  the  bottom  of 
sorrow  and  wickedness,  have  done  this  wise  and 
beautiful  thing,  and  Browning  rarely  omits  it. 

The  first  art-matter  in  the  poem  is  Browning's 
sketch  of  the  sudden  genesis  of  a  picture.  Andrea  is 
sitting  with  his  wife  on  the  window-seat  looking 
out  to  Fiesole.  As  he  talks  she  smiles  a  weary, 
lovely,  autumn  smile,  and,  born  in  that  instant  and 
of  her  smile,  he  sees  his  picture,  knows  its  atmos- 
phere, realises  its  tone  of  colour,  feels  its  prevailing 
sentiment.  How  he  will  execute  it  is  another 
question,  and  depends  on  other  things ;  but  no 
better  sketch  could  be  given  of  the  sudden  spiritual 
fashion  in  which  great  pictures  are  generated. 
Here  are  the  Hues,  and  they  also  strike  the  keynote 
of  Andrea's  soul  —  that  to  which  his  life  has  brought 

him. 

You  smile  ?  why,  there^s  my  picture  ready  made, 
There's  what  we  painters  call  our  harmony  ! 
A  common  greyness  silvers  everything,  — 
All  in  a  twilight,  you  and  I  alike  — 


THE  POET  OF  ART  157 

You,  at  the  point  of  your  first  pride  in  me 

(That's  gone,  you  know),  —  but  I,  at  every  point; 

My  youth,  my  hope,  my  art,  being  all  toned  down 

To  yonder  sober  pleasant  Fiesole. 

There's  the  bell  clinking  from  the  chapel-top  ; 

That  length  of  convent-wall  across  the  way 

Holds  the  trees  safer,  huddled  more  inside  ; 

The  last  monk  leaves  the  garden  ;  days  decrease, 

And  autumn  grows,  autumn  in  everything. 

Eh  ?  the  whole  seems  to  fall  into  a  shape 

As  if  I  saw  alike  my  work  and  self 

And  all  that  I  was  born  to  be  and  do, 

A  twilight  piece.     Love,  we  are  in  God's  hand. 

In  God's  hand  .'*  Yes,  but  why  being  free  are  we 
so  fettered }  And  here  slips  in  the  unbidden  guest 
of  the  theory.  Andrea  has  chosen  earthly  love  ; 
Lucrezia  is  all  in  all ;  and  he  has  reached  absolute 
perfection  in  drawing  — 

I  do  what  many  dream  of,  all  their  lives. 

He  can  reach  out  beyond  himself  no  more.  He 
has  got  the  earth,  lost  the  heaven.  He  makes  no 
error,  and  has,  therefore,  no  impassioned  desire 
which,  flaming  through  the  faulty  picture,  makes  it 
greater  art  than  his  faultless  work.  "  The  soul  is 
gone  from  me,  that  vext,  suddenly-impassioned, 
upward-rushing  thing,  with  its  play,  insight,  broken 
sorrows,  sudden  joys,  pursuing,  uncontented  life. 
These  men  reach  a  heaven  shut  out  from  me, 
though  they  cannot  draw  like  me.  No  praise  or 
blame  affects  me.  I  know  my  handiwork  is  perfect. 
But  there  burns  a  truer  light  of  God  in  them. 
Lucrezia,  I  am  judged." 

Ah,  but  a  man's  reach  should  exceed  his  grasp, 
Or  what's  a  heaven  for  ?     All  is  silver-grey. 
Placid  and  perfect  with  my  art :  —  the  worse  ! 


158  '  BROWNING 

"Here,"  he  says,  "is  a  piece  of  Rafael.  The 
arm  is  out  of  drawing,  and  I  could  make  it  right. 
But  the  passion,  the  soul  of  the  thing  is  not  in  me. 
Had  you,  my  love,  but  urged  me  upward,  to  glory 
and  God,  I  might  have  been  uncontent ;  I  might 
have  done  it  for  you.  No,"  and  again  he  sweeps 
round  on  himself,  out  of  his  excuses,  "  perhaps  not, 
*  incentives  come  from  the  soul's  self  ' ;  and  mine  is 
gone.  I've  chosen  the  love  of  you,  Lucrezia,  earth's 
love,  and  I  cannot  pass  beyond  my  faultless  draw- 
ing into  the  strife  to  paint  those  divine  imaginations 
the  soul  conceives." 

That  is  the  meaning  of  Browning.  The  faultless, 
almost  mechanical  art,  the  art  which  might  be  born 
of  an  adulterous  connexion  between  science  and 
art,  is  of  little  value  to  men.  Not  in  the  flawless 
painter  is  true  art  found,  but  in  those  who  painted 
inadequately,  yet  whose  pictures  breathe 

Infinite  passion  and  the  pain 
Of  finite  hearts  that  yearn. 

In  this  incessant  strife  to  create  new  worlds,  and 
in  their  creation,  which,  always  ending  in  partial 
failure,  forces  fresh  effort,  Hes,  Browning  might 
have  said,  the  excuse  for  God  having  deliberately 
made  us  defective.  Had  we  been  made  good,  had 
we  no  strife  with  evil ;  had  we  the  power  to  embody 
at  once  the  beauty  we  are  capable  of  seeing  ;  could 
we  have  laid  our  hand  on  truth,  and  grasped  her 
without  the  desperate  struggle  we  have  to  win  one 
fruit  from  her  tree ;  had  we  had  no  strong  crying 
and  tears,  no  agony  against  wrong,  against  our  own 
passions  and  their  work,  against  false  views  of 
things  —  we    might    have    been    angels;    but   we 


THE  POET  OF  ART  159 

should  not  have  had  humanity  and  all  its  wild 
history,  and  all  its  work  ;  we  should  not  have  had 
that  which,  for  all  I  know,  may  be  unique  in  the 
universe ;  no,  nor  any  of  the  great  results  of 
the  battle  and  its  misery.  Had  it  not  been  for  the 
defectiveness,  the  sin  and  pain,  we  should  have 
had  nothing  of  the  interest  of  the  long  evolution 
of  science,  law,  and  government,  of  the  charm  of 
discovery,  of  pursuit,  of  the  slow  upbuilding  of 
moral  right,  of  the  vast  variety  of  philosophy. 
Above  all,  we  should  have  had  none  of  the  great 
art  men  love  so  well,  no  Odyssey,  Divme  Comedy, 
no  Hamlet,  no  GLdipus,  no  Handel,  no  Beethoven, 
no  painting  or  sculpture  where  the  love  and  sorrow 
of  the  soul  breathe  in  canvas,  fresco,  marble,  and 
bronze,  no,  nor  any  of  the  great  and  loving  lives 
who  suffered  and  overcame,  from  Christ  to  the  poor 
woman  who  dies  for  love  in  a  London  lane.  All 
these  are  made  through  the  struggle  and  the 
sorrow.  We  should  not  have  had,  I  repeat, 
humanity ;  and  provided  no  soul  perishes  for  ever 
but  lives  to  find  union  with  undyipg  love,  the  game, 
with  all  its  terrible  sorrow,  pays  for  the  candle. 
We  may  find  out,  some  day,  that  the  existence 
and  work  of  humanity,  crucified  as  it  has  been, 
are  of  untold  interest  and  use  to  the  universe 
—  which  things  the  angels  desire  to  look  into.  If 
Browning  had  listened  to  that  view,  he  would,  I 
think,  have  accepted  it. 

Old  Pictures  in  Florence  touches  another  side  of 
his  theory.  In  itself,  it  is  one  of  Browning's  half- 
humorous  poems ;  a  pleasantly-composed  piece, 
glancing  here  and  glancing  there,  as  a  man's  mind 
does  when  leaning  over  a  hill-villa's  parapet  on  a 


l6o  BROWNING 

sunny  morning  in  Florence.  I  have  elsewhere 
quoted  its  beginning.  It  is  a  fine  example  of  his 
Nature-poetry :  it  creates  the  scenery  and  atmos- 
phere of  the  poem ;  and  the  four  lines  with  which 
the  fourth  verse  closes  sketch  what  Browning 
thought  to  be  one  of  his  poetic  gifts  — 

And  mark  through  the  winter  afternoons, 
»  By  a  gift  God  grants  me  now  and  then, 

In  the  mild  decline  of  those  suns  like  moons, 
Who  walked  in  Florence,  besides  her  men. 

This,  then,  is  a  poem  of  many  moods,  beginning 
with  Giotto's  Tower ;  then  wondering  why  Giotto 
did  not  tell  the  poet  who  loved  him  so  much  that 
one  of  his  pictures  was  lying  hidden  in  a  shop  where 
some  one  else  picked  it  up ;  then,  thinking  of  all 
Giotto's  follov/ers,  whose  ghosts  he  imagines  are 
wandering  through  Florence,  sorrowing  for  the 
decay  of  their  pictures. 

**  But  at  least  they  have  escaped,  and  have  their 
holiday  in  heaven,  and  do  not  care  one  straw  for 
our  praise  or  blame.  They  did  their  work,  they 
and  the  great  masters.  We  call  them  old  Masters, 
but  they  were  new  in  their  time;  their  old  Masters 
were  the  Greeks.  They  broke  away  from  the 
Greeks  and  revolutionised  art  into  a  new  life.  In 
our  turn  we  must  break  away  from  them." 

And  now  glides  in  the  theory.  "When  Greek 
art  reached  its  perfection,  the  limbs  which  infer  the 
soul,  and  enough  of  the  soul  to  inform  the  limbs, 
were  faultlessly  represented.  Men  said  the  best 
had  been  done,  and  aspiration  and  growth  in  art 
ceased.  Content  with  what  had  been  done,  men 
imitated,  but  did  not  create.  But  man  cannot 
remain  without  change   in  a  past  perfection ;  for 


THE  POET  OF  ART  i6i 

then  he  remains  in  a  kind  of  death.  Even  with 
faihire,  with  faulty  work,  he  desires  to  make  new 
things,  and  in  making,  to  be  aHve  and  feel  his  life. 
Therefore  Giotto  and  the  rest  began  to  create  a 
fresh  aspect  of  humanity,  which,  however  imperfect 
in  form,  would  suggest  an  infinite  perfection.  The 
Greek  perfection  ties  us  down  to  earth,  to  a  few 
forms,  and  the  sooner,  if  it  forbids  us  to  go  on,  we 
reject  its  ideal  as  the  only  one,  the  better  for  art 
and  for  mankind. 

'Tis  a  life-long  toil  till  our  lump  be  leaven  — 

The  better  !     What's  come  to  perfection  perishes. 

Things  learned  on  earth,  we  shall  practise  in  heaven : 
Works  done  least  rapidly,  Art  most  cherishes. 

**  The  great  Campanile  is  still  unfinished  ;  "  so  he 
shapes  his  thoughts  into  his  scenery.  Shall  man 
be  satisfied  in  art  with  the  crystallised  joy  of  Apollo, 
or  the  petrified  grief  of  Niobe,  when  there  are  a 
million  more  expressions  of  joy  and  grief  to  render  } 
In  that  way  felt  Giotto  and  his  crew.  "■  We  will 
paint  the  whole  of  man,"  they  cried,  "  paint  his 
new  hopes  and  joys  and  pains,  and  never  pause, 
because  we  shall  never  quite  succeed.  We  will 
paint  the  soul  in  all  its  infinite  variety  —  bring  the 
invisible  full  into  play.  Of  course  we  shall  miss  per- 
fection—  who  can  get  side  by  side  with  infinitude  } 
—  but  we  shall  grow  out  of  the  dead  perfection  of 
the  past,  and  live  and  move,  and  have  our  being. 

"  Let  the  visible  go  to  the  dogs —  what  matters  ?  " 

Thus  art  began  again.  Its  spring-tide  came, 
dim  and  dewy;  and  the  world  rejoiced. 

And  that  is  what  has  happened  again  and  again 
in  the  history  of   art.     Browning  has    painted    a 

M 


i63  BROWNING 

universal  truth.  It  was  that  which  took  place 
when  Wordsworth,  throwing  away  the  traditions 
of  a  century  and  all  the  finished  perfection,  as  men 
thought,  of  the  Augustan  age,  determined  to  write 
of  man  as  man,  w^hatever  the  issue ;  to  live  with 
the  infinite  variety  of  human  nature,  and  in  its 
natural  simplicities.  What  we  shall  see,  he  thought, 
may  be  faulty,  common,  unideal,  imperfect.  What 
we  shall  write  will  not  have  the  conventional  per- 
fection of  Pope  and  Gray,  which  all  the  cultivated 
world  admires,  and  in  which  it  rests  content  — 
growth  and  movement  dead  —  but  it  will  be  true, 
natural,  alive,  running  onwards  to  a  far-off  goal. 
And  we  who  write  —  our  loins  are  accinct,  our 
lights  burning,  as  men  waiting  for  the  revelation  of 
the  Bridegroom.  Wordsworth  brought  back  the 
soul  to  Poetry.  She  made  her  failures,  but  she  was 
alive.  Spring  was  blossoming  around  her  with  dews 
and  living  airs,  and  the  infinite  opened  before  her. 
So,  too,  it  was  when  Turner  recreated  land- 
scape-art. There  was  the  perfect  Claudesque  land- 
scape, with  all  its  parts  arranged,  its  colours  chosen 
the  composition  balanced,  the  tree  here,  the  river 
there,  the  figures  in  the  foreground,  the  accurate 
distribution  and  gradation  of  the  masses  of  Hght 
and  shade.  "There,"  the  critics  said,  "we  have 
had  perfection.  Let  us  rest  in  that."  And  all  growth 
in  landscape-art  ceased.  Then  came  Turner,  who, 
when  he  had  followed  the  old  for  a  time  and  got 
its  good,  broke  away  from  it,  as  if  in  laughter. 
"What,"  he  felt,  "the  infinite  of  Nature  is  before 
me ;  inconceivable  change  and  variety  in  earth, 
and  sky,  and  sea — and  shall  I  be  tied  down  to  one 
form  of  painting  landscape,  one  arrangement  of 


THE  POET  OF  ART  163 

artistic  properties?  Let  the  old  perfection  go." 
And  we  had  our  revolution  in  landscape-art : 
nothing,  perhaps,  so  faultless  as  Claude's  composi- 
tion, but  life,  love  of  Nature,  and  an  illimitable 
range ;  incessant  change,  movement,  and  aspira- 
tion which  have  never  since  allowed  the  landscape 
artist  to  think  that  he  has  attained. 

On  another  side  of  the  art  of  painting,  Rossetti, 
Millais,  Hunt  arose  ;  and  they  said,  *'  We  will  paint 
men  as  they  actually  were  in  the  past,  in  the 
moments  of  their  passion,  and  with  their  emotions 
on  their  faces,  and  with  the  scenery  around  them 
as  it  was ;  and  whatever  background  of  Nature  there 
was  behind  them,  it  shall  be  painted  direct  from  the 
very  work  of  Nature  herself,  and  in  her  very  colours. 
In  doing  this  our  range  will  become  infinite.  No 
doubt  we  shall  fail.  We  cannot  grasp  the  whole  of 
Nature  and  humanity,  but  we  shall  be  in  their  Hfe : 
aspiring,  alive,  and  winning  more  and  more  of 
truth."  And  the  world  of  art  howled  at  them,  as 
the  world  of  criticism  howled  at  Wordsworth.  But 
a  new  life  and  joy  began  to  move  in  painting.  Its 
winter  was  over,  its  spring  had  begun,  its  summer 
was  imagined.  Their  drawing  was  faulty ;  their 
colour  was  called  crude  ;  they  seemed  to  know  Httle 
or  nothing  of  composition ;  but  the  Spirit  of  Life 
was  in  them,  and  their  faults  were  worth  more 
than  the  best  successes  of  the  school  that  followed 
Rafael ;  for  their  faults  proved  that  passion,  aspi- 
ration, and  originality  were  again  alive : 

Give  these,  I  exhort  you,  their  guerdon  and  glory 
For  daring  so  much,  before  they  well  did  it. 

If  ever  the  artist  should  say  to  himself,  ''  What 


i64  BROWNING 

I  desire  has  been  attained :  I  can  but  imitate  or 
follow  it";  or  if  the  people  who  care  for  any  art 
should  think,  '*  The  best  has  been  reached ;  let  us 
be  content  to  rest  in  that  perfection";  the  death 
of  art  has  come. 

The  next  poem  belonging  to  this  subject  is  the 
second  part  of  Pippa  Passes.  What  concerns  us 
here  is  that  Jules,  the  French  artist,  loves  Phene ; 
and  on  his  return  from  his  marriage  pours  out  his 
soul  to  her  concerning  his  art. 

In  his  work,  in  his  pursuit  of  beauty  through  his 
aspirations  to  the  old  Greek  ideal,  he  has  found 
his  full  content  —  his  heaven  upon  earth.  But 
now,  living  love  of  a  woman  has  stolen  in.  How 
can  he  now,  he  asks,  pursue  that  old  ideal  when  he 
has  the  real  ?  how  carve  Tydeus,  with  her  about 
the  room .?  He  is  disturbed,  thrilled,  uncontent. 
A  new  ideal  rises.     How  can  he  now 

Bid  each  conception  stand  while,  trait  by  trait, 
My  hand  transfers  its  lineaments  to  stone? 
Will  my  mere  fancies  live  near  you,  their  truth  — 
The  live  tmth,  passing  and  repassing  me, 
Sitting  beside  me? 

Before  he  had  seen  her,  all  the  varied  stuff  of 
Nature,  every  material  in  her  workshop,  tended  to 
one  form  of  beauty,  to  the  human  archetype.  But 
now  she,  Phene,  represents  the  archetype ;  and 
though  Browning  does  not  express  this,  we  feel 
that  if  Jules  continue  in  that  opinion,  his  art  will  die. 
Then,  carried  away  by  his  enthusiasm  for  his  art,  he 
passes,  through  a  statement  that  Nature  suggests 
in  all  her  doings  man  and  his  life  and  his  beauty  — 
a  statement  Browning  himself  makes  in  Paracelsus 
—  to  a  description  of  the  capabilities  of  various  stuffs 


THE  POET  OF  ART  165 

in  Nature  under  the  sculptor's  hand,  and  especially 
of  marble  as  having  in  it  the  capabilities  of  all  the 
other  stuffs  and  also  something  more  ;  a  living 
spirit  in  itself  which  aids  the  sculptor  and  even 
does  some  of  his  work. 

This  is  a  subtle  thought  peculiarly  characteristic 
of  Browning's  thinking  about  painting,  music,  poetry, 
or  sculpture.  I  beUeve  he  felt,  and  if  he  did  not, 
it  is  still  true,  that  the  vehicle  of  any  art  brought 
something  out  of  itself  into  the  work  of  the  artist. 
Abt  Vogler  feels  this  as  he  plays  on  the  instrument 
he  made.  Any  musician  who  plays  on  two  in- 
struments knows  that  the  distinct  instrument  does 
distinct  work,  and  loves  each  instrument  for  its  own 
spirit ;  because  each  makes  his  art,  expressed  in  it, 
differentf  rom  his  art  expressed  in  another.  Even  the 
same  art-creation  is  different  in  two  instruments  :  the 
vehicle  does  its  own  part  of  the  work.  Any  painter 
will  say  the  same,  according  as  he  works  in  fresco 
or  on  canvas,  in  water-colour,  or  in  oil.  Even  a 
material  Hke  charcoal  makes  him  work  the  same 
conception  in  a  different  way.  I  will  quote  the 
passage ;  it  goes  to  the  root  of  the  matter ;  and 
whenever  I  read  it,  I  seem  to  hear  a  well-known 
sculptor  as  he  talked  one  night  to  me  of  the  spirit- 
ual way  in  which  marble,  so  soft  and  yet  so  firm, 
answered  like  living  material  to  his  tool,  sending 
flame  into  it,  and  then  seemed,  as  with  a  voice, 
to  welcome  the  emotion  which,  flowing  from  him 

through  the  chisel,  passed  into  the  stone. 

« 

But  of  the  stuffs  one  can  be  master  of, 
How  I  divined  their  capabilities  ! 
From  the  soft-rinded  smooth ening  facile  chalk 
That  yields  your  outline  to  the  air's  embrace, 


1 66  BROWNING 

Half-softened  by  a  halo's  pearly  gloom  : 

Down  to  the  crisp  imperious  steel,  so  sure 

To  cut  its  one  confided  thought  clean  out 

Of  all  the  world.     But  marble  !  —  'neath  my  tools 

More  pliable  than  jelly  —  as  it  were 

Some  clear  primordial  creature  dug  from  depths 

In  the  earth's  heart,  where  itself  breeds  itself. 

And  whence  all  baser  substance  may  be  worked  ; 

Refine  it  off  to  air,  you  may  —  condense  it 

Down  to  the  diamond;  —  is  not  metal  there, 

When  o'er  the  sudden  speck  my  chisel  trips  ? 

—  Not  flesh,  as  flake  off"  flake  I  scale,  approach, 

Lay  bare  those  bluish  veins  of  blood  asleep  ? 

Lurks  flame  in  no  strange  windings  where,  surprised 

By  the  swift  implement  sent  home  at  once, 

Flushes  and  glo wings  radiate  and  hover 

About  its  track  ? 

But  Jules  finds  that  Phene,  whom  he  has  been 
deceived  into  believing  an  intelligence  equal  to  his 
own,  does  not  understand  one  word  he  has  said,  is 
nothing  but  an  uneducated  girl ;  and  his  dream 
of  perfection  in  the  marriage  of  Art  and  Love 
vanishes  away,  and  with  the  deception  the  aims  and 
hopes  of  his  art  as  it  has  been.  And  Browning 
makes  this  happen  of  set  purpose,  in  order  that, 
having  lost  satisfaction  in  his  art-ideal,  and  then 
his  satisfaction  in  that  ideal  realised  in  a  woman  — 
having  failed  in  Art  and  Love — he  may  pass  on  into 
a  higher  aim,  with  a  higher  conception,  both  of  art 
and  love,  and  make  a  new  world,  in  the  woman 
and  in  the  art.  He  is  about  to  accept  the  failure, 
to  take  only  to  revenge  on  his  deceivers,  when 
Pippa  sings  as  she  is  passing,  and  the  song  touches 
him  into  finer  issues  of  thought.  He  sees  that 
Phene's  soul  is,  like  a  butterfly,  half-loosed  from  its 
chrysalis,  and  ready  for  flight.  The  sight  and  song 
awake  a  truer  love,  for  as  yet  he  has  loved  Phene 


THE  POET  OF  ART  167 

only  through  his  art.  Now  he  is  impassioned  with 
pity  for  a  human  soul,  and  his  first  new  sculpture 
will  be  the  creation  of  her  soul. 

Shall  to  produce  form  out  of  unshaped  stuff 

Be  Art  —  and  further,  to  evoke  a  soul 

From  form  be  nothing  ?     This  new  soul  is  mine  ! 

At  last,  he  is  borne  into  self-forgetfulness  by 
love,  and  finds  a  man's  salvation.  And  in  that  loss 
of  self  he  drinks  of  the  deep  fountain  of  art.  Aprile 
found  that  out.  Sordello  dies  as  he  discovers  it,  and 
Jules,  the  moment  he  has  touched  its  waters  with 
his  lip,  sees  a  new  realm  of  art  arise,  and  loves  it 
with  such  joy  that  he  knows  he  will  have  power  to 
dwell  in  its  heart,  and  create  from  its  joy. 

One  may  do  whatever  one  likes 

In  Art  ;  the  only  thing  is,  to  make  sure 

That  one  does  like  it  —  which  takes  pains  to  know. 

He  breaks  all  his  models  up.  They  are  paltry, 
dead  things  belonging  to  a  dead  past.  "  I  begin," 
he  cries,  "  art  afresh,  in  a  fresh  world, 

Some  unsuspected  isle  in  far-off  seas." 

The  ideal  that  fails  means  the  birth  of  a  new 
ideal.  The  very  centre  of  Browning  as  an  artist  is 
there : 

Held  we  fall  to  rise,  are  baffled  to  fight  better, 
Sleep  to  wake  ! 

Sordello  is  another  example  of  his  theory,  of  a 
different  type  from  Aprile,  or  that  poet  in  Paiiliiie 
who  gave  Browning  the  sketch  from  which  Sordello 
was  conceived.  But  Browning,  who,  as  I  have  said, 
repeated  his  theory,  never  repeated  his  examples  : 
and  Sordello  is  not  only  clearly  varied  from  Aprile 


1 68  BROWNING 

and  the  person  in  Paidine,  but  the  variations  them- 
selves are  inventively  varied.  The  complex  tempera- 
ment of  Sordello  incessantly  alters  its  form,  not  only 
as  he  grows  from  youth  to  manhood,  but  as  circum- 
stances meet  him.  They  give  him  a  shock,  as  a 
slight  blow  does  to  a  kaleidoscope,  and  the  whole 
pattern  of  his  mind  changes.  But  as  with  the  bits 
of  coloured  glass  in  the  kaleidoscope,  the  elements 
of  Sordello's  mind  remain  the  same.  It  is  only 
towards  the  end  of  his  career,  on  the  forcible  intro- 
duction into  his  life  of  new  elements  from  the 
outward  world,  that  his  character  radically  changes, 
and  his  soul  is  born.  He  wins  that  which  he  has 
been  without  from  the  beginning.  He  wins,  as  we 
should  say,  a  heart.  He  not  only  begins  to  love 
Palma  otherwise  than  in  his  dreams,  but  with  that 
love  the  love  of  man  arises  —  for,  in  characters  like 
Sordello,  personal  love,  once  really  stirred,  is  sure 
to  expand  beyond  itself  —  and  then,  following  on 
the  love  of  man,  conscience  is  quickened  into  life, 
and  for  the  first  time  recognises  itself  and  its  duties. 
In  this  new  light  of  love  and  conscience,  directed 
towards  humanity,  he  looks  back  on  his  life  as  an 
artist,  or  rather.  Browning  means  us  to  do  so  ;  and 
we  understand  that  he  has  done  nothing  worthy  in 
his  art ;  and  that  even  his  gift  of  imagination  has 
been  without  the  fire  of  true  passion.  His  aspira- 
tions, his  phantasies,  his  songs,  done  only  for  his 
own  sake,  have  been  cold,  and  left  the  world  cold. 
He  has  aspired  to  a  life  in  the  realm  of  pure 
imagination,  to  winning  by  imagination  alone  all 
knowledge  and  all  love,  and  the  power  over  men 
which  flows  from  these.  He  is,  in  this  aspiration, 
Paracelsus  and  Aprile  in  one.     But  he  has  neither 


THE  POET  OF  ART  i6c) 

the  sincerity  of  Paracelsus  nor  the  passion  of  Aprile. 
He  lives  in  himself  alone,  beyond  the  world  of 
experience,  and  only  not  conscious  of  those  barriers 
which  limit  our  life  on  which  Browning  dwells  so 
much,  because  he  does  not  bring  his  aspirations  or 
his  imaginative  work  to  the  test  by  shaping  them 
outside  of  himself.  He  fails,  that  is,  to  create 
anything  which  will  please  or  endure ;  fails  in 
the  first  aim,  the  first  duty  of  an  artist.  He  comes 
again  and  again  to  the  verge  of  creating  something 
which  may  give  delight  to  men,  but  only  once 
succeeds,  when  by  chance,  in  a  moment  of  excited 
impulse,  caused  partly  by  his  own  vanity,  and  partly 
by  the  waves  of  humanity  at  Palma's  CotLi't  of 
Love  beating  on  his  soul,  he  breaks  for  a  passing 
hour  into  the  song  which  conquers-  Eglamor.  When, 
at  the  end,  he  does  try  to  shape  himself  without 
for  the  sake  of  men  he  is  too  late  for  this  life. 
He  dies  of  the  long  struggle,  of  the  revelation 
of  his  failure  and  the  reasons  of  it,  of  the  supreme 
light  which  falls  on  his  wasted  life ;  and  yet  not 
wasted,  since  even  in  death  he  has  found  his  soul 
and  all  it  means.  His  imagination,  formerly  only 
intellectual,  has  become  emotional  as  well ;  he  loves 
mankind,  and  sacrifices  fame,  power,  and  knowledge 
to  its  welfare.  He  no  longer  thinks  to  avoid,  by 
living  only  in  himself,  the  baffling  Hmitations  which 
inevitably  trouble  human  life ;  but  now  desires, 
working  within  these  limits,  to  fix  his  eyes  on  the 
ineffable  Love ;  failing  but  making  every  failure  a 
ladder  on  which  to  climb  to  higher  things.  This 
— the  true  way  of  life  —  he  finds  out  as  he  dies.  To 
have  that  spirit,  and  to  work  in  it,  is  the  very 
life  of  art.     To  pass  for  ever  out  of  and  beyond 


170  BROWNING 

one's  self  is  to  the  artist  the  lesson  of  Sordello's 
story. 

It  is  hardly  learnt.  The  self  in  Sordcllo,  the  self 
of  imagination  imwarmcd  by  love  of  men,  is  driven 
out  of  the  artist  with  strange  miseries,  battles,  and 
despairs,  and  these  Browning  describes  with  such 
inventiveness  that  at  the  last  one  is  inclined  to  say, 
with  all  the  pitiful  irony  of  Christ,  "  This  kind  goeth 
not  forth  but  with  prayer  and  fasting." 

The  position  in  the  poem  is  at  root  the  same 
as  that  in  Tennyson's  Palace  of  Art.  These  two 
poets  found,  about  the  same  time,  the  same  idea,  and, 
independently,  shaped  it  into  poems.  Tennyson  put 
it  into  the  form  of  a  vision,  the  defect  of  which  was 
that  it  was  too  far  removed  from  common  experience. 
Browning  put  it  into  the  story  of  a  man's  life. 
Tennyson  expressed  it  with  extraordinary  clearness, 
simpHcity,  and  with  a  wealth  of  lovely  ornament,  so 
rich  that  it  somewhat  overwhelmed  the  main  lines 
of  his  conception.  Browning  expressed  it  with 
extraordinary  complexity,  subtlety,  and  obscurity  of 
diction.  But  when  we  take  the  trouble  of  getting 
to  the  bottom  of  Sordello,  we  find  ourselves  where 
we  do  not  find  ourselves  in  The  Palace  of  Ai^t—wQ 
find  ourselves  in  close  touch  and  friendship  with 
a  man,  living  with  him,  sympathising  with  him, 
pitying  him,  blessing  him,  angry  and  delighted  with 
him,  amazingly  interested  in  his  labyrinthine  way  of 
thinking  and  feehng ;  we  follow  with  keen  interest 
his  education,  we  see  a  soul  in  progress ;  we 
wonder  what  he  will  do  next,  what  strange  turn 
we  shall  come  to  in  his  mind,  what  new  effort  he 
will  make  to  realise  himself  ;  and,  loving  him  right 
through  from  his  childhood  to  his  death,  we  are 


THE  POET  OF  ART  171 

quite  satisfied  when  he  dies.  At  the  back  of  this, 
and  complicating  it  still  more;  but,  when  we 
arrive  at  seeing  it  clearly,  increasing  the  interest  of 
the  poem,  is  a  great  to-and-f  ro  of  humanity  at  a  time 
when  humanity  was  alive  and  keen  and  full  of  at- 
tempting ;  when  men  were  savagely  original,  when 
life  was  lived  to  its  last  drop,  and  when  a  new  world 
was  dawning.  Of  all  this  outside  humanity  there 
is  not  a  trace  in  Tennyson,  and  Browning  could 
not  have  got  on  without  it.  Of  course,  it  made  his 
poetry  difficult.  We  cannot  get  excellences  without 
their  attendant  defects.  We  have  a  great  deal  to 
forgive  in  Sordello.  But  for  the  sake  of  the  vivid 
humanity  we  forgive  it  all. 

Sordello  begins  as  a  boy,  living  alone  in  a  castle 
near  Mantua,  built  in  a  gorge  of  the  low  hills,  and 
the  description  of  the  scenery  of  the  castle,  without 
and  within,  is  one  example  of  the  fine  ornament  of 
which  Sordello  is  so  full.  There,  this  rich  and 
fertile  nature  lives,  fit  to  receive  delight  at  every 
sense,  fit  to  shape  what  is  received  into  imaginative 
pictures  within,  but  not  without ;  content  with  the 
contemplation  of  his  own  imaginings.  At  first  it 
is  Nature  from  whom  Sordello  receives  impressions, 
and  he  amuses  himself  with  the  fancies  he  draws 
from  her.  But  he  never  shapes  his  emotion  into 
actual  song.  Then  tired  of  Nature,  he  dreams  him- 
self into  the  skin  and  soul  of  all  the  great  men  of 
whom  he  has  read.  He  becomes  them  in  himself, 
as  Pauline's  lover  has  done  before  him ;  but  one 
by  one  they  fade  into  unreality  —  for  he  knows 
nothing  of  men —  and  the  last  projection  of  himself 
into  Apollo,  the  Lord  of  Poetry,  is  the  most  unreal 
of  them  all:  at  which  phantasy  all  the  woods  and 


172  BROWNING 

streams  and  sunshine  round  Goito  are  infinitely 
amused.  Thus,  when  he  wants  sympathy,  he  does 
not  go  down  to  Mantua  and  make  song  for  the 
crowd  of  men ;  he  invents  in  dreams  a  host  of 
sympathisers,  all  of  whom  are  but  himself  in  other 
forms.  Even  when  he  aims  at  perfection,  and, 
making  himself  Apollo,  longs  for  a  Daphne  to 
double  his  life,  his  soul  is  still  such  stuff  as  dreams 
are  made  of,  till  he  wakes  one  morning  to  ask 
himself  :  "  When  will  this  dream  be  truth  }  " 

This  is  the  artist's  temperament  in  youth  when 
he  is  not  possessed  of  the  greater  qualities  of  gen- 
ius—  his  imaginative  visions,  his  aspirations,  his 
pride  in  apartness  from  men,  his  self-contentment, 
his  sloth,  the  presence  in  him  of  barren  imagination, 
the  absence  from  it  of  the  spiritual,  nothing  in  him 
which  as  yet  desires,  through  the  sorrow  and  strife 
of  life,  God's  infinitude,  or  man's  love;  a  natural 
life  indeed,  forgivable,  gay,  sportive,  dowered  with 
happy  self-love,  good  to  pass  through  and  enjoy, 
but  better  to  leave  behind.  But  Sordello  will  not 
become  the  actual  artist  till  he  lose  his  self- 
involvement  and  find  his  soul,  not  only  in  love  of 
his  Daphne  but  in  love  of  man.  And  the  first 
thing  he  will  have  to  do  is  that  which  Sordello 
does  not  care  to  do  —  to  embody  before  men  in 
order  to  give  them  pleasure  or  impulse,  to  console 
or  exalt  them,  some  of  the  imaginations  he  has 
enjoyed  within  himself.  Nor  can  Sordello's  imagi- 
nation reach  true  passion,  for  it  ignores  that  which 
chiefly  makes  the  artist ;  union  with  the  passions 
of  mankind.  Only  when  near  to  death  does  he 
outgrow  the  boy  of  Goito,  and  then  we  find  that 
he  has  ceased  to  be  the  artist.     Thus,  the  poem  is 


THE  POET  OF  ART 


173 


the  history  of  the  faikire  of  a  man  with  an  artistic 
temperament  to  be  an  artist.  Or  rather,  that  is 
part  of  the  story  of  the  poem,  and,  as  Browning 
was  an  artist  himself,  a  part  which  is  of  the  greatest 
interest. 

Sordello,  at  the  close  of  the  first  book,  is  wearied 
of  dreams.  Even  in  his  solitude,  the  hmits  of  life 
begin  to  oppress  him.  Time  fleets,  fate  is  tardy, 
life  will  be  over  before  he  lives.  Then  an  accident 
helps  him  — 

Which  breaking  on  Sordello's  mixed  content 
Opened,  like  any  flash  that  cures  the  blind, 
The  veritable  business  of  mankind. 

This  accident  is  the  theme  of  the  second  book. 
It  belongs  to  the  subject  of  this  chapter,  for  it 
contrasts  two  types  of  the  artist,  Eglamor  and 
Sordello,  and  it  introduces  Naddo,  the  critic,  with 
a  good  knowledge  of  poetry,  with  a  great  deal  of 
common  sense,  with  an  inevitable  sliding  into  the 
opinion  that  what  society  has  stamped  must  be 
good  —  a  mixed  personage,  and  a  sketch  done  with 
Browning's  humorous  and  pitying  skill. 

The  contrast  between  Eglamor  and  Sordello  runs 
through  the  whole  poem.  Sordello  recalls  Eglamor 
at  the  last,  and  Naddo  appears  again  and  again  to 
give  the  worldly  as  well  as  the  common-sense 
solution  of  the  problems  which  Sordello  makes  for 
himself.  Eglamor  is  the  poet  who  has  no  genius, 
whom  one  touch  of  genius  burns  into  nothing,  but 
who,  having  a  charming  talent,  employs  it  well ; 
and  who  is  so  far  the  artist  that  what  he  feels  he 
is  able  to  shape  gracefully,  and  to  please  mankind 
therewith;  who,   moreover   loves,    enjoys,    and   is 


174  BROWNING 

wholly  possessed  with  what  he  shapes  in  song. 
This  is  good ;  but  then  he  is  quite  satisfied  with 
what  he  does ;  he  has  no  aspiration,  and  all  the 
infinitude  of  beauty  is  lost  to  him.  And  when 
Sordello  takes  up  his  incomplete  song,  finishes  it, 
inspires,  expands  what  Eglamor  thought  perfect,  he 
sees  at  last  that  he  has  only  a  graceful  talent,  that 
he  has  lived  in  a  vain  show,  like  a  gnome  in  a  cell 
of  the  rock  of  gold.  Genius,  momentarily  realising 
itself  in  Sordello,  reveals  itself  to  Eglamor  with  all 
its  infinities ;  Heaven  and  Earth  and  the  universe 
open  on  Eglamor,  and  the  revelation  of  what  he  is, 
and  of  the  perfection  beyond,  kills  him.  That  is  a 
fine,  true,  and  piteous  sketch. 

But  Sordello,  who  is  the  man  of  possible  genius, 
is  not  much  better  off.  There  has  been  one  out- 
break into  reality  at  Palma's  Court  of  Love.  Every 
one,  afterwards,  urges  him  to  sing.  The  critics 
gather  round  him.  He  makes  poems,  he  becomes 
the  accepted  poet  of  Northern  Italy.  But  he 
cannot  give  continuous  delight  to  the  world.  His 
poems  are  not  like  his  song  before  Palma.  They 
have  no  true  passion,  being  woven  like  a  spider's 
web  out  of  his  own  inside.  His  case  then  is  more 
pitiable,  his  failure  more  complete,  than  Eglamor's. 
Eglamor  could  shape  something ;  he  had  his  own 
enjoyment,  and  he  gave  pleasure  to  men.  Sordello, 
lured  incessantly  towards  abstract  ideals,  lost  in 
their  contemplation,  is  smitten,  like  Aprile,  into 
helplessness  by  the  multitudinousness  of  the  images 
he  sees,  refuses  to  descend  into  real  life  and  submit 
to  its  limitations,  is  driven  into  the  slothfulncss  of 
that  [dreaming  imagination  which  is  powerless  to 
embody  its  images  in  the  actual  song.     Sometimes 


THE  POET  OF  ART  i75 

he   tries   to   express   himself,  longing  for   reality. 
When    he  tries   he  fails,  and   instead   of   making 
failure   a   step    to    higher    effort,    he   falls    back 
impatiently    on    himself,    and   is   lost   in   himself. 
Moreover,  he  tries  always  within  himself,  and  with 
himself  for  judge.     He  does  not  try  the  only  thing 
which  would    help    him  —  the    submission   of    his 
work  to  the  sympathy  and  judgment  of  men.     Out 
of  touch  with  any  love  save  love  of  his  own  im- 
aginings, he  cannot  receive  those  human  impres- 
sions which  kindle  the  artist  into  work,  nor  answer 
the    cry  which    comes  from    mankind,  with    such 
eagerness,  to  genius  —  *'  Express  for  us  in   clear 
form  that  which  we  vaguely  feel.    Make  us  see  and 
admire  and  love."    Then  he  ceases  even  to  love  song, 
because,  though  he  can  imagine  everything,  he  can 
do  nothing;   and  deaf   to  the   voices    of  men,  he 
despises  man.     Finally  he  asks   himself,  like  so 
many  young  poets  who    have   followed   his  way, 
What  is  the  judgment  of  the  world  worth  t  Nothing 
at  all,  he  answers.     With  that  ultimate  folly,  the 
favourite   resort   of   minor    poets,    Sordello    goes 
altogether  wrong.     He  pleases  nobody,  not  even 
himself ;  spends  his  time  in  arguing  inside  himself 
why  he  has  not  succeeded ;  and  comes  to  no  con- 
clusion, except  that  total  failure  is  the  necessity  of 
the  world.    At  last  one  day,  wandering  from  Mantua, 
he  finds  himself   in    his    old  environment,  in    the 
mountain  cup  where  Goito  and  the  castle  lie.    And 
the  old  dream,  awakened  by  the  old  associations, 
that  he  was  Apollo,   Lord  of  Song,  rushed  back 
upon  him  and  enwrapped  him  wholly.  He  feels,  in 
the  blessed  silence,  that  he  is  no  longer  what  he 
has  been  of  late, 


176  BROWNING 

a  pettish  minstrel  meant 
To  wear  away  his  soul  in  discontent, 
Brooding  on  fortune's  malice, 

but  himself  once  more,  freed  from  the  world  of 
Mantua ;  alone  again,  but  in  his  loneliness  really 
more  lost  than  he  was  at  Mantua,  as  we  soon  find 
out  in  the  third  book. 

I  return,  in  concluding  this  chapter,  to  the  point 
which  bears  most  clearly  on  Browning  as  the  poet  of 
art.  The  only  time  when  Sordello  realises  what  it  is 
to  be  an  artist  is  when,  swept  out  of  himself  by  the 
kindled  emotion  of  the  crowd  at  the  Co?i7't  of  Love 
and  inspired  also  by  the  true  emotion  of  Eglamor's 
song,  which  has  been  made  because  he  loved  it  — 
his  imagination  is  impassioned  enough  to  shape  for 
man  the  thing  within  him,  outside  of  himself,  and 
to  sing  for  the  joy  of  singing  —  having  forgotten 
himself,  in  mankind,  in  their  joy  and  in  his  own. 

But  it  was  little  good  to  him.  When  he  stole 
home  to  Goito  in  a  dream,  he  sat  down  to  think 
over  the  transport  he  had  felt,  why  he  felt  it,  how 
he  was  better  than  Eglamor ;  and  at  last,  having 
missed  the  whole  use  of  the  experience  (which  was 
to  draw  him  into  the  service  of  man  within  the 
limits  of  life  but  to  always  transcend  the  limits  in 
aspiration),  he  falls  away  from  humanity  into  his 
own  self  again;  and  perfectly  happy  for  the  moment, 
but  lost  as  an  artist  and  a  man,  lies  lazy,  filleted  and 
robed  on  the  turf,  with  a  lute  beside  him,  looking 
over  the  landscape  below  the  castle  and  fancying 
himself  Apollo.  This  is  to  have  the  capacity  to  be 
an  artist,  but  it  is  not  to  be  an  artist.  And  we  leave 
Sordello  lying  on  the  grass  enjoying  himself,  but  not 
destined  on  that  account  to  give  any  joy  to  man. 


CHAPTER   VI 

SORDELLO 

THE  period  in  which  the  poem  of  Sordello 
opens  is  at  the  end  of  the  first  quarter  of  the 
thirteenth  century,  at  the  time  when  the  Guelf 
cities  alHed  themselves  against  the  Ghibelhnes  in 
Northern  Italy.  They  formed  the  Lombard  League, 
and  took  their  private  quarrels  up  into  one  great 
quarrel  —  that  between  the  partisans  of  the  Em- 
pire and  those  of  the  Pope.  Sordello  is  then  a 
young  man  of  thirty  years.  He  was  born  in  1 194, 
when  the  fierce  fight  in  the  streets  of  Vicenza  took 
place  which  SaUnguerra  describes,  as  he  looks  back 
on  his  life,  in  the  fourth  canto  of  this  poem.  The 
child  is  saved  in  that  battle,  and  brought  from 
Vicenza  by  Adelaide,  the  second  wife  of  Ezzelino 
da  Romano  11.,*  to  Goito.  He  is  really  the  son  of 
Salinguerra  and  Retrude,  a  connection  of  Fred- 
erick II.,  but  Adelaide  conceals  this,  and  brings 
him  up  as  her  page,  alleging  that  he  is  the  son  of 
Elcorte,  an  archer.  Palma  (or  Cunizza),  Ezzelino's 
daughter  by  Agnes  Este,  his  first  wife,  is  also  at 
Goito  in  attendance  on  Adelaide.  Sordello  and  she 
meet  as  girl  and  boy,  and  she  becomes  one  of  the 

*  Browning  spells  this  name  Ecelin,  probably  for  easier  use  in 
verse. 

N  177 


178  BROWNING 

dreams  with  which  his  lonely  youth  at  Goito  is 
adorned. 

At  Adelaide's  death  Palma  discovers  the  real 
birth  of  SordcUo.  She  has  heard  him  sing  some 
time  before  at  a  Love-court,  where  he  won  the 
prize ;  where  she,  admiring,  began  to  love  him ;  and 
this  love  of  hers  has  been  increased  by  his  poetic 
fame  which  has  now  filled  North  Italy.  She 
summons  him  to  her  side  at  Verona,  makes  him 
understand  that  she  loves  him,  and  urges  him,  as 
Salinguerra's  son,  to  take  the  side  of  the  Ghibel- 
lines  to  whose  cause  Salinguerra,  the  strongest 
military  adventurer  in  North  Italy,  has  now  de- 
voted himself.  When  the  poem  begins,  Salin- 
guerra has  received  from  the  Emperor  the  badge 
which  gives  him  the  leadership  of  the  Ghibelline 
party  in  North  Italy. 

Then  Palma,  bringing  Sordelloto  see  Salinguerra, 
reveals  to  the  great  partisan  that  Sordello  is  his 
son,  and  that  she  loves  him.  Salinguerra,  seeing 
in  the  union  of  Palma,  daughter  of  the  Lord  of 
Romano,  with  his  son,  a  vital  source  of  strength  to 
the  Emperor's  party,  throws  the  Emperor's  badge 
on  his  son's  neck,  and  offers  him  the  leadership 
of  the  Ghibellines.  Palma  urges  him  to  accept  it ; 
but  Sordello  has  been  already  convinced  that  the 
Guelf  side  is  the  right  one  to  take  for  the  sake  of 
mankind.  Rome,  he  thinks,  is  the  great  uniting 
power ;  only  by  Rome  can  the  cause  of  peace  and 
the  happiness  of  the  people  be  in  the  end  secured. 
That  cause  —  the  cause  of  a  happy  people  —  is  the 
one  thing  for  which,  after  many  dreams  centred  in 
self,  Sordello  has  come  to  care.  He  is  sorely 
tempted  by  the  love  of  Palma  and  by  the  power 


SORDELLO  179 

offered  him  to  give  up  that  cause  or   to    palter 
with  it ;  yet  in  the  end  his  soul  resists  the  tempta- 
tion.    But  the  part  of   his  life,  in  which  he  has 
neglected  his  body,  has  left  him  without  physical 
strength ;  and  now  the  struggle  of  his  soul  to  do 
right  in  this  spiritual  crisis  gives  the  last  blow  to 
his  weakened  frame.     His  heart   breaks,  and   he 
dies  at  the  moment  when  he  dimly  sees  the  true 
goal  of  Hfe.     This  is  a  masterpiece  of  the  irony  of 
the  Fate-Goddess;    and  a  faint  suspicion  of  this 
irony,  underlying  life,  even  though  Browning  turns 
it  round  into  final  good,   runs  in  and  out  of  the 
whole  poem  in  a  winding  thread  of  thought. 

This  is  the  historical  background  of  the  poem, 
and  in  front  of  it  are  represented  Sordello,  his  life, 
his   development  as  an  individual   soul,   and   his 
death.     I  have,  from  one  point  of  view,  slightly 
analysed  the  first  two  books  of  the  poem,  but  to 
analyse  the  whole  would  be  apart  from  the  purpose 
of  this  book.     My  object  in  this  and  the  following 
chapter  is  to  mark  out,  with  here  and  there  a  piece 
of  explanation,  certain  characteristics  of  the  poem 
in  relation,  first,  to  the  time  in  which  it  is  placed ; 
secondly,  to  the  development  of  Sordello  in  contact 
with  that  time ;  and  thirdly,  to  our  own  time ;  then 
to  trace  the  connection  of  the  poem  with  the  poetic 
evolution  of  Browning ;  and  finally,  to  dwell  through- 
out the  whole  discussion  on  its  poetic  qualities. 

I.  The  time  in  which  the  poem's  thought  and 
action  are  placed  is  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth 
century  in  North  Italy,  a  period  in  which  the 
religious  basis  of  Hfe,  laid  so  enthusiastically  in  the 
eleventh  century,  and  gradually  weakening  through 
the  twelfth,  had  all  but  faded  away  for  the  mediae- 


i8o  BROWNING 

val  noble  and  burgher,  and  even  for  the  clergy. 
Religion,  it  is  true,  was  confessed  and  its  dogmas 
believed  in ;  the  Cistercian  revival  had  restored 
some  of  its  lost  influence,  but  it  did  not  any  longer 
restrain  the  passions,  modify  the  wickedness,  control 
the  ambitions,  or  subdue  the  world,  in  the  heart  of 
men,  as  it  had  done  in  the  eleventh  century.  There 
was  in  Italy,  at  least,  an  unbridled  licence  of  life,  a 
fierce  individuality,  which  the  existence  of  a  num- 
ber of  small  republics  encouraged ;  and,  in  conse- 
quence, a  wild  confusion  of  thought  and  act  in  every 
sphere  of  human  life.  Moreover,  all  through  the 
twelfth  century  there  had  been  a  reaction  among  the 
artistic  and  literary  men  against  the  theory  of  life 
laid  down  by  the  monks,  and  against  the  merely 
saintly  aims  and  practice  of  the  religious,  of  which 
that  famous  passage  in  Aiicassin  arid  Nicolete  is  an 
embodiment.  Then,  too,  the  love  poetry  (a  poetry 
which  tended  to  throw  monkish  purity  aside)  started 
in  the  midst  of  the  twelfth  century;  then  the  trouba- 
dours began  to  sing;  and  then  the  love-songs  of 
Germany  arose.  And  Itahan  poetry,  a  poetry  which 
tended  to  repel  the  religion  of  the  spirit  for  the  re- 
ligion of  enjoyment,  had  begun  in  Sicily  and  Siena 
in  1172-78,  and  was  nurtured  in  the  Sicilian  Court 
of  Frederick  II.,  while  Sordello  was  a  youth.  All 
over  Europe,  poetry  drifted  into  a  secular  poetry  of 
love  and  war  and  romance.  The  religious  basis  of 
life  had  lost  its  strength.  As  to  North  Italy, 
where  our  concern  lies,  humanity  there  was  welter- 
ing Hke  a  sea,  tossing  up  and  down,  with  no  direc- 
tion in  its  waves.  It  was  not  till  Francis  of  Assisi 
came  that  a  new  foundation  for  religious  life,  a  new 
direction  for  it,  began  to   be  established.     As  to 


SORDELLO  i8i 

Law,  Government,  Literature,  and  Art,  all  their 
elements  were  in  equal  confusion.  Every  noble, 
every  warrior  who  reached  ascendency,  or  was 
born  to  it,  made  his  own  laws  and  governed  as  he 
hked.  Every  little  city  had  its  own  fashions  and 
its  own  aims ;  and  was  continually  fighting,  driven 
by  jealousy,  envy,  hatred,  or  emulation,  with  its 
neighbours.  War  was  the  incessant  business  of 
life,  and  was  carried  on  not  only  against  neighbour- 
ing cities,  but  by  each  city  in  its  own  streets,  from 
its  own  towers,  where  noble  fought  against  noble, 
citizen  with  citizen,  and  servant  with  servant. 
Literature  was  only  trying  to  begin,  to  find  its 
form,  to  find  its  own  Itahan  tongue,  to  understand 
what  it  desired.  It  took  more  than  a  century  after 
Sordello's  youth  to  shape  itself  into  the  poetry  of 
Dante  and  Petrarch,  into  their  prose  and  the  prose 
of  Boccaccio.  The  Vita  Niiova  was  set  forth  in 
1290-93,  the  Decamcro7t  in  1350-53,  and  Petrarch 
was  crowned  at  Rome  in  1341.  And  the  arts  of 
sculpture  and  painting  were  in  the  same  condition. 
They  were  struggling  towards  a  new  utterance,  but 
as  yet  they  could  not  speak. 

It  is  during  this  period  of  impassioned  confusion 
and  struggle  towards  form,  during  this  carnival  of 
individuahty,  that  Sordello,  as  conceived  by  Brown- 
ing, a  modern  in  the  midst  of  mediaevalism,  an 
exceptional  character  wholly  unfitted  for  the  time, 
is  placed  by  Browning.  And  the  clash  between 
himself  and  his  age  is  too  much  for  him.  He  dies 
of  it ;  dies  of  the  striving  to  find  an  anchorage  for 
life,  and  of  his  inability  to  find  it  in  this  chartless 
sea.  But  the  world  of  men,  incessantly  recruited 
by  new  generations,  does  not  die  like  the  individual, 


i82  BROWNING 

and  what  Sordello  could  not  do,  it  did.  It  emerged 
from  this  confusion  in  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth 
centuries,  with  S.  Francis,  Dante,  Petrarch,  and  Boc- 
caccio, the  Pisani,  Giotto,  and  the  Commonwealth 
of  Florence.  Religion,  Poetry,  Prose,  Sculpture, 
Painting,  Government,  and  Law  found  new  foun- 
dations. The  Renaissance  began  to  dawn,  and 
during  its  dawn  kept,  among  the  elect  of  mankind, 
all  or  nearly  all  the  noble  impulses  and  faith  of 
medisevalism. 

This  dawn  of  the  Renaissance  is  nearly  a  hundred 
years  away  at  the  time  of  this  poem,  yet  two  of  its 
characteristics  vitally  moved  through  this  transi 
tion  period;  and,  indeed,  while  they  continued  even 
to  the  end  of  the  Renaissance,  were  powers  which 
brought  it  about.  The  first  of  these  was  a  boundless 
curiosity  about  life,  and  the  second  was  an  intense 
individuality.  No  one  can  read  the  history  of  the 
Italian  Republics  in  the  thirteenth  century  without 
incessantly  coming  into  contact  with  both  these 
elements  working  fiercely,  confusedly,  without  ap- 
parently either  impulse  or  aim,  but  producing  a 
wonderful  activity  of  life,  out  of  which,  by  com- 
mand as  it  were  of  the  gods,  a  new-created  world 
might  rise  into  order.  It  was  as  if  chaos  were 
stirred,  like  a  cauldron  with  a  stick,  that  suns 
and  planets,  moving  by  living  law,  might  emerge 
in  beauty.  Sordello  lived  in  the  first  whirling  of 
these  undigested  elements,  and  could  only  dream 
of  what  might  be  ;  but  it  was  life  in  which  he 
moved,  disorderly  life,  it  is  true,  but  not  the 
dread  disorder  of  decay.  Browning  paints  it 
with  delight. 

This  unbridled  curiosity  working  in  men  of  un- 


SORDELLO  183 

bridled  individuality  produced  a  tumbling  confusion 
in  life.  Men,  full  of  eagerness,  each  determined  to 
fulfil  his  own  will,  tried  every  kind  of  life,  attempted 
every  kind  of  pursuit,  strove  to  experience  all  the 
passions,  indulged  their  passing  impulses  to  the  full, 
and  when  they  were  wearied  of  any  experiment  in 
living  passed  on  to  the  next,  not  with  weariness 
but  with  fresh  excitement.  Cities,  small  repubhcs, 
did  the  sam.e  collectively — Ferrara,  Padua,  Verona, 
Mantua,  Milan,  Parma,  Florence,  Pisa,  Siena,  Pe- 
rugia. Both  cities  and  citizens  lived  in  a  nervous 
storm,  and  at  every  impulse  passed  into  furious 
activity.  In  five  minutes  a  whole  town  was  up  in 
the  market-place,  the  bells  rang,  the  town  banner 
was  displayed,  and  in  an  hour  the  citizens  were 
marching  out  of  the  gates  to  attack  the  neighbouring 
city.  A  single  gibe  in  the  streets,  or  at  the  church 
door,  interchanged  between  one  noble  and  another 
of  opposite  factions,  and  the  gutters  of  the  streets 
ran  red  with  the  blood  of  a  hundred  men.  This 
then  was  the  time  of  Sordcllo,  and  splendidly  has 
Browning  represented  it. 

2.  Sordello  is  the  image  of  this  curiosity  and 
individuality,  but  only  inwardly.  In  the  midst  of 
this  turbulent  society  Browning  creates  him  with 
the  temperament  of  a  poet,  living  in  a  solitary 
youth,  apart  from  arms  and  the  wild  movement  of 
the  world.  His  soul  is  full  of  the  curiosity  of  the 
time.  The  inquisition  of  his  whole  life  is,  "  What 
is  the  life  most  worth  living  .'*  How  shall  I  attain 
it,  in  what  way  make  it  mine  "^  "  and  then,  **  What 
sort  of  lives  are  lived  by  other  men .'' "  and,  finally, 
"  What  is  the  happiest  life  for  the  whole  1 "  The 
curiosity  does  not  drive  him,  like  the  rest  of  the 


i84  BROWNING 

world,  into  action  in  the  world.  It  expands  only 
in  thought  and  dreaming.  But  however  he  may 
dream,  however  wrapt  in  self  he  may  be,  his 
curiosity  about  these  matters  never  lessens  for  a 
moment.  Even  in  death  it  is  his  ruling  passion. 
Along  with  this  he  shares  fully  in  the  impassioned 
individuality  of  the  time.  Browning  brings  that 
forward  continually.  All  the  dreams  of  his  youth 
centre  in  himself  ;  Nature  becomes  the  reflection  of 
himself ;  all  histories  of  great  men  he  represents  as 
in  himself ;  finally,  he  becomes  to  himself  Apollo, 
the  incarnation  of  poetry.  But  he  does  not  seek 
to  realise  his  individuality,  any  more  than  his 
curiosity,  in  action.  When  he  is  drawn  out  of 
himself  at  Mantua  and  sings  for  a  time  to  please 
men,  he  finds  that  the  public  do  not  understand 
him,  and  flies  back  to  his  solitude,  back  to  his 
own  soul.  And  Mantua,  and  love,  and  adventure 
all  die  within  him.  *'  I  have  all  humanity,"  he  says, 
"  within  myself  —  why  then  should  I  seek  human- 
ity }  "  This  is  the  way  the  age's  passion  for  individ- 
uality shows  itself  in  him.  Other  men  put  it  into 
love,  war,  or  adventure.  He  does  not ;  he  puts  it 
into  the  lonely  building-up  of  his  own  soul.  Even 
when  he  is  brought  into  the  midst  of  the  action  of 
the  time  we  see  that  he  is  apart  from  it.  As  he 
wanders  through  the  turmoil  of  the  streets  of  Fer- 
rara  in  Book  iv.,  he  is  dreaming  still  of  his  own 
life,  of  his  own  soul.  His  curiosity,  wars,  and 
adventures  are  within.  The  various  lives  he  is 
anxious  to  live  are  lived  in  lonely  imaginations. 
The  individuality  he  reahses  is  in  thought.  At 
this  point  then  he  is  apart  from  his  century  —  an 
exceptional  temperament  set  in  strong  contrast  to 


SORDELLO  185 

the  world  around  him  —  the  dreamer  face  to  face 
with  a  mass  of  men  all  acting  with  intensity.    And 
the   common   result  takes  place;   the   exceptional 
breaks  down  against  the  steady  and  terrible  pull  of 
the  ordinary.     It  is  Hamlet  over  again,  and  when 
Sordello  does  act  it  is  just  as  Hamlet  does,  by  a 
sudden  impulse  which  lifts  him  from  dreaming  into 
momentary  action,  out  of  which,  almost  before  he 
has  realised  he  is  acting,  he  slips  back  again  into 
dreams.     And  his  action  seems  to  him  the  dream, 
and  his  dream  the  activity.    That  saying  of  Hamlet's 
would  be  easy  on  the  lips  of  Sordello,  if  we  take  ''bad 
dreams"  to  mean  for  him  what  they  meant  for  Ham- 
let the  moment  he  is  forced  to  action  in  the  real 
^orld  —  "I  could  be  bounded  in  a  nut-shell  and 
think  myself  king  of  infinite  space,  had  I  not  bad 
dreams."     When  he  is  surprised  into  action  at  the 
Court  of  Love  at  Mantua,  and  wins  the  prize  of  song, 
he  seems  to  sHp  back  into  a  sleepy  cloud.  But  Palma, 
bending  her  beautiful  face  over  him  and  giving  him 
her  scarf,  wins  him  to  stay  at  Mantua;  and  for  a 
short  time  he  becomes  the  famous  poet.     But  he  is 
disappointed.    That  which  he  felt  himself  to  be  (the 
supernal  greatness  of  his  individuality)  is  not  recog- 
nised, and  at  last  he  feels  that  to  act  and  fight  his 
way  through  a  world  which  appreciates  his  isolated 
greatness  so  little  as  to  dare  to  criticise  him,  is  im- 
possible.   We  have  seen  in  the  last  chapter  how  he 
slips  back  to  Goito,  to  his  contemplation  of  himself  in 
Nature,  to  his  self-communion,  to  the  dreams  which 
do  not  contradict  his  opinion  of  himself.     The  mo- 
mentary creator  perishes  in  the  dreamer.     He  gives 
up  life,  adventure,  love,  war,  and  he  finally  sur- 
renders his  art.     No  more  poetry  for  him. 


1 86  BROWNING 

It  is  thus  that  a  character  feeble  for  action,  but 
mystic  in  imagination,  acts  in  the  petulance  of 
youth  when  it  is  pushed  into  a  clashing,  claiming 
world.  In  this  mood  a  year  passes  by  in  vague 
content.  Yet  a  little  grain  of  conscience  makes 
him  sour.  He  is  vexed  that  his  youth  is  gone  with 
all  its  promised  glow,  pleasure,  and  action ;  and  the 
vexation  is  suddenly  deepened  by  seeing  a  great 
change  in  the  aspect  of  Nature.  "  What,"  he  thinks, 
when  he  sees  the  whole  valley  filled  with  Mincio  in 
flood,  *'  can  Nature  in  this  way  renew  her  youth, 
and  not  I .''  Alas !  I  cannot  so  renew  myself;  youth 
is  over."  But  if  youth  be  dead,  manhood  remains ; 
and  the  curiosity  and  individuality  of  the  age  stir  in 
him  again.  "I  must  find,"  he  thinks,  "the  fitting 
kind  of  life.  I  must  make  men  feel  what  I  am. 
But  how ;  what  do  I  want  for  this }  I  want  some 
outward  power  to  draw  me  forth  and  upward,  as 
the  moon  draws  the  waters ;  to  lead  me  to  a  life  in 
which  I  may  know  mankind,  in  order  that  I  may 
take  out  of  men  all  I  need  to  make  myself  into  per- 
fect form  —  a  full  poet,  able  to  impose  my  genius 
on  mankind,  and  to  lead  them  where  I  will.  What 
force  can  draw  me  out  of  these  dreaming  solitudes 
in  which  I  fail  to  reaUse  my  art }  Why,  there  is 
none  so  great  as  love.  Palma  who  smiled  on  me, 
she  shall  be  my  moon."  At  that  moment,  when 
he  is  again  thrilled  with  curiosity  concerning  life, 
again  desirous  to  reahse  his  individuality  in  the 
world  of  men,  a  message  comes  from  Palma.  ''Come, 
there  is  much  for  you  to  do  —  come  to  me  at  Verona." 
She  lays  a  political  career  before  him.  "  Take  the 
Kaiser's  cause,  you  and  I  together;  build  a  new 
Italy  under  the  Emperor."    And  Sordello  is  fired  by 


SORDELLO  187 

the  thought,  not  as  yet  for  the  sake  of  doing  good 
to  man,  but  to  satisfy  his  curiosity  in  a  new  life, 
and  to  edify  his  individual  soul  into  a  perfection 
unattained  as  yet.  "  I  will  go,"  he  thinks,  "  and  be 
the  spirit  in  this  body  of  mankind,  wield,  animate, 
and  shape  the  people  of  Italy,  make  them  the  form 
in  which  I  shall  express  myself.  It  is  not  enough 
to  act,  in  imagination,  all  that  man  is,  as  I  have 
done.  I  will  now  make  men  act  by  the  force  of  my 
spirit:  North  Italy  shall  be  my  body,  and  thus  I 
shall  reahse  myself"  —  as  if  one  could,  with  that 
self-contemplating  motive,  ever  realise  personality. 

This,  then,  is  the  position  of  Sordello  in  the 
period  of  history  I  have  pictured,  and  it  carries  him 
to  the  end  of  the  third  book  of  the  poem.  It  has 
embodied  the  history  of  his  youth  —  of  his  first 
contact  with  the  world ;  of  his  retreat  from  it  into 
thought  over  what  he  has  gone  through ;  and  of 
his  reawakening  into  a  fresh  questioning  —  how  he 
shall  realise  life,  how  manifest  himself  in  action. 
"  What  shall  I  do  as  a  poet,  and  a  man  } " 

3.  The  next  thing  to  be  said  of  Sordello  is  its 
vivid  reaHsation  of  certain  aspects  of  mediaeval  life. 
Behind  this  image  of  the  curious  dreamer  lost  in 
abstractions,  and  vividly  contrasted  with  it,  is  the 
fierce  activity  of  mediaeval  cities  and  men  in  inces- 
sant war ;  each  city,  each  man  eager  to  make  his 
own  individuality  supreme ;  and  this  is  painted  by 
Browning  at  the  very  moment  when  the  two  great 
parties  were  formed,  and  added  to  personal  war  the 
intensifying  power  of  two  ideals.  This  was  a  field 
for  imagination  in  which  Browning  was  sure  to  revel, 
like  a  wild  creature  of  the  woods  on  a  summer  day. 
He  had  the  genius  of  places,  of  portraiture,  and  of 


1 88  BROWNING 

sudden  flashes  of  action  and  passion  ;  and  the  time 
of  which  he  wrote  suppUed  him  with  full  matter 
for  these  several  capacities  of  genius. 

When  we  read  in  Sordcllo  of  the  fierce  outbursts 
of  war  in  the  cities  of  North  Italy,  we  know  that 
Browning  saw  them  with  his  eyes  and  shared  their 
fury  and  dehght.  Verona  is  painted  in  the  first 
book  just  as  the  news  arrives  that  her  prince  is 
captive  in  Ferrara.  It  is  evening,  a  still  and  flam- 
ing sunset,  and  soft  sky.  In  dreadful  contrast  to 
this  burning  silence  of  Nature  is  the  wrath  and 
hate  which  are  seething  in  the  market-place. 
Group  talked  with  restless  group,  and  not  a  face 

But  wrath  made  livid,  for  among  them  were 

Death's  staunch  purveyors,  such  as  have  in  care 

To  feast  him.     Fear  had  long  since  taken  root 

In  every  breast,  and  now  these  crushed  its  fruit, 

The  ripe  hate,  like  a  wine ;  to  note  the  way 

It  worked  while  each  grew  drunk  !     Men  grave  and  grey 

Stood,  with  shut  eyelids,  rocking  to  and  fro, 

Letting  the  silent  luxury  trickle  slow 

About  the  hollows  where  a  heart  should  be ; 

But  the  young  gulped  with  a  delirious  glee 

Some  foretaste  of  their  first  debauch  in  blood 

At  the  fierce  news. 

Step  by  step  the  varying  passions,  varying  with 
the  men  of  the  varied  cities  of  the  League  assem- 
bled at  Verona,  are  smitten  out  on  the  anvil  of 
Browning's  imagination.  Better  still  is  the  con- 
tinuation of  the  same  scene  in  the  third  book,  when 
the  night  has  come,  and  the  raging  of  the  people, 
reaching  its  height,  declares  war.  Palma  and 
Sordello,  who  are  in  the  palace  looking  on  the 
square,  lean  out  to  see  and  hear.  On  the  black 
balcony  beneath  them,  in  the  still  air,  amid  a  gush 


SORDELLO  189 

of  torch-fire,  the  grey-haired  counsellors  harangue 

the  people  ; 

then 
Sea-like  that  people  surging  to  and  fro 
Shouted,  "  Hale  forth  the  carroch  —  trumpets,  ho, 
A  flourish  !     Run  it  in  the  ancient  grooves  ! 
Back  from  the  bell  !     Hammer  —  that  whom  behoves 
May  hear  the  League  is  up  ! 

Then  who  will  may  read  the  dazzling  account 
of  the  streets  of  Ferrara  thick  with  corpses;  of 
Padua,  of  Bassano  streaming  blood ;  of  the  wells 
chokeful  of  carrion,  of  him  who  catches  in  his  spur, 
as  he  is  kicking  his  feet  when  he  sits  on  the  well 
and  singing,  his  own  mother's  face  by  the  grey 
hair  ;  of  the  sack  of  Vicenza  in  the  fourth  book ;  of 
the  procession  of  the  envoys  of  the  League  through 
the  streets  of  Ferrara,  with  ensigns,  war-cars,  and 
clanging  bells;  of  the  wandering  of  Sordello  at 
night  through  the  squares  blazing  with  fires,  and 
the  soldiers  camped  around  them  singing  and 
shouting ;  of  his  soHtary  silent  thinking  contrasted 
with  their  noise  and  action  —  and  he  who  reads 
will  know,  as  if  he  lived  in  them,  the  fierce  Itahan 
towns  of  the  thirteenth  century. 

Nor  is  his  pov/er  less  when  he  describes  the  soli- 
tary silent  places  of  mediaeval  castles,  palaces,  and 
their  rooms ;  of  the  long,  statue-haunted,  cypress- 
avenued  gardens,  a  waste  of  flowers  and  wild 
undergrowth.  We  wander,  room  by  room,  through 
Adelaide's  castle  at  Goito,  we  see  every  beam  in 
the  ceiling,  every  figure  on  the  tapestry ;  we  walk 
with  Browning  through  the  dark  passages  into  the 
dim-lighted  chambers  of  the  town  palace  at  Verona, 
and  hano;  over  its  balconies ;  we  know  the  gardens 


TQO  BROWNING 

at  Goito,  and  the  lonely  woods ;  and  we  keep  pace 
with  Sordello  through  those  desolate  paths  and 
ilex-groves,  past  the  fountains  lost  in  the  wilderness 
of  foHage,  climbing  from  terrace  to  terrace  where 
the  broken  statues,  swarming  with  wasps,  gleam 
among  the  leering  aloes  and  the  undergrowth,  in 
the  garden  that  Salinguerra  made  for  his  Sicilian 
wife  at  Ferrara.  The  words  seem  as  it  were  to 
flare  the  ancient  places  out  before  the  eyes. 

Mixed  up  with  all  this  painting  of  towns,  castles, 
and  gardens  there  is  some  natural  description. 
Browning  endeavours,  it  is  plain,  to  keep  that 
within  the  mediaeval  sentiment.  But  that  he  should 
succeed  in  that  was  impossible.  The  mediaeval 
folk  had  little  of  our  specialised  sentiment  for 
landscape,  and   Browning  could  not  get  rid  of  it. 

The  modern  philosophies  of  Nature  do  not,  how- 
ever, appear  in  Sordello  as  they  did  in  PaiUme  or 
Paracelsus.  Only  once  in  the  whole  of  Sordello  is 
Nature  conceived  as  in  analogy  with  man,  and 
Browning  says  this  in  a  parenthesis.  **  Life  is  in 
the  tempest,"  he  cries,  "thought 

"  Clothes  the  keen  hill-top ;  mid-day  woods  are  fraught 
With  fervours  "  : 

but,  in  spite  of  the  mediaeval  environment,  the 
modern  way  of  seeing  Nature  enters  into  all  his 
descriptions.  They  are  none  the  worse  for  it,  and 
do  not  jar  too  much  with  the  mediaeval  mise- 
en-schie.  We  expect  our  modern  sentiment,  and 
Sordello  himself,  being  in  many  ways  a  modern, 
seems  to  licence  these  descriptions.  Most  of  them 
also  occur  when  he  is  on  the  canvas,  and  are  a 
background  to  his  thought.      Moreover,  they  are 


SORDELLO  191 

not  set  descriptions ;  they  are  flashed  out,  as  it 
were,  in  a  few  lines,  as  if  they  came  by  chance, 
and  are  not  pursued  into  detail.  Indeed,  they  are 
not  done  so  much  for  the  love  of  Nature  herself, 
as  for  passing  illustrations  of  Sordello's  ways  of 
thought  and  feeling  upon  matters  which  are  not 
Nature.  As  such,  even  in  a  mediaeval  poem,  they 
are  excusable.  And  vivid  they  are  in  colour,  in 
light,  in  reality.  Some  I  have  already  isolated. 
Here  are  a  few  more,  just  to  show  his  hand.  This 
is  the  castle  and  its  scenery,  described  in  Book  i. : 

In  Mantua  territory  half  is  slough, 
Half  pine-tree  forest  :    maples,  scarlet  oaks 
Breed  o'er  the  river-beds  ;  even  Mincio  chokes 
With  sand  the  summer  through  :  but  'tis  morass 
In  winter  up  to  Mantua's  walls.     There  was, 
Some  thirty  years  before  this  evening's  coil, 
One  spot  reclaimed  from  the  surrounding  spoil, 
Goito  ;  just  a  castle  built  amid 
A  few  low  mountains  ;  firs  and  larches  hid 
Their  main  defiles,  and  rings  of  vineyard  bound 
The  rest.     Some  captured  creature  in  a  pound, 
Whose  artless  wonder  quite  precludes  distress, 
Secure  beside  in  its  own  loveliness, 
So  peered,  with  airy  head,  below,  above 
The  castle  at  its  toils,  the  lapwings  love 
To  glean  among  at  grape  time. 

And  this  is  the  same  place  from  the  second  book  : 

And  thus  he  wandered,  dumb 
Till  evening,  when  he  paused,  thoroughly  spent, 
On  a  blind  hill-top :  down  the  gorge  he  went, 
Yielding  himself  up  as  to  an  embrace. 
The  moon  came  out ;  like  features  of  a  face, 
A  querulous  fraternity  of  pines. 
Sad  blackthorn  clumps,  leafless  and  grovelling  vines 
Also  came  out,  made  gradually  up 
The  picture ;  'twas  Goito's  mountain-cup 
And  castle. 


192 


BROWNING 


And  here,  from  Book  iii.,  is  Spring  when  Palma, 
dreaming  of  the  man  she  can  love,  cries  that  the 
waking  earth  is  in  a  thrill  to  welcome  him  — 

'•Waits  he  not  the  waking  year? 
His  almond-blossoms  must  be  honey-ripe 
By  this  ;  to  welcome  him  fresh  runnels  stripe 
The  thawed  ravines  ;  because  of  him  the  wind 
Walks  like  a  herald." 
This  is  May  from  Book  ii. ;  and  afterwards,  in  the 
third  book,  the  months  from  Spring  to  Summer  — 

My  own  month  came  ; 
'Twas  a  sunrise  of  blossoming  and  May. 
Beneath  a  flowering  laurel  thicket  lay 
Sordello  ;  each  new  sprinkle  of  white  stars 
That  smell  fainter  of  wine  than  Massic  jars 
Dug  up  at  Baiae,  when  the  south  wind  shed 
The  ripest,  made  him  happier. 
Not  any  strollings  now  at  even-close 
Down  the  field  path,  Sordello!  by  thorn-rows 
Alive  with  lamp-flies,  swimming  spots  of  fire 
And  dew,  outlining  the  black  cypress-spire 
She  waits  you  at,  Elys,  who  heard  you  first 
Woo  her,  the  snow  month  through,  but,  ere  she  durst 
Answer  'twas  April.     Linden-flower-time  long 
Her  eyes  were  on  the  ground ;  'tis  July,  strong 
Now ;  and,  because  white  dust-clouds  overwhelm 
The  woodside,  here,  or  by  the  village  elm 
That  holds  the  moon,  she  meets  you,  somewhat  pale. 

And  here  are  two  pieces  of  the  morning,  one  of 
the  wide  valley  of  Naples ;  another  with  which  the 
poem  ends,  pure  modern,  for  it  does  not  belong  to 
Sordello's  time,  but  to  our  own  century.     This  is 

from  the  fourth  book. 

Broke 
Morning  o'er  earth  ;  he  yearned  for  all  it  woke  — 
From  the  volcano's  vapour-flag,  winds  hoist 
Black  o'er  the  spread  of  sea,  —  down  to  the  moist 
Dale's  silken  barley-spikes  sullied  with  rain, 
Swayed  earthwards,  heavily  to  rise  again. 


SORDELLO  193 

And  this  from  the  last  book  — 

Lo,  on  a  heathy  brown  and  nameless  hill 

By  sparkling  Asolo,  in  mist  and  chill, 

Morning  just  up,  higher  and  higher  runs 

A  child  barefoot  and  rosy.     See  !  the  sun's 

On  the  square  castle's  inner-court's  low  wall 

Like  the  chine  of  some  extinct  animal 

Half-turned  to  earth  and  flow^ers  ;  and  through  the  haze, 

(Save  where  some  slender  patches  of  grey  maize 

Are  to  be  over-leaped)  that  boy  has  crossed 

The  whole  hill-side  of  dew  and  powder-frost 

Matting  the  balm  and  mountain  camomile. 

Up  and  up  goes  he,  singing  all  the  while 

Some  unintelligible  words  to  beat 

The  lark,  God's  poet,  swooning  at  his  feet. 

As  alive,  and  even  clearer  in  outline   than  these 
natural  descriptions,  are  the  portraits  in  Sordello 
of  the  people  of  the  time.     No  one  can  mistake 
them   for  modern   folk.     I  do  not   speak    of   the 
portrait  of  Sordello  —  that  is  chiefly  of  the  soul, 
not  of  the  body  —  but  of  the  personages  who  fill 
the  background,  the   heads  of    noble    houses,  the 
warriors,  priests,  soldiers,  singers,  the  women,  and 
chiefly  Adelaide  and  Palma.    These  stand  before  us 
as  Tintoret  or  Veronese  might  have  painted  them 
had  they  lived  on  into  the  great  portrait-century. 
Their  dress,  their  attitudes,  their  sudden  gestures, 
their  eyes,  hair,  the  trick    of   their  mouths,  their 
armour,  how  they  walked  and  talked  and  read  and 
wrote,  are  all  done  in   quick  touches  and   jets  of 
colour.     Each  is  distinct  from  the  others,  each  a 
type.     A    multitude  of    cabinet    sketches  of   men 
are  made   in    the    market-places,  in  castle  rooms, 
on    the    roads,    in   the    gardens,    on    the   bastions 
of  the  towns.     Take  as  one  example    the  Pope's 

Legate : 
o 


194  BROWNING 

With  eyes,  like  fresh-blown  thrush-eggs  on  a  thread, 

Faint-bhie  and  loosely  floating  in  his  head, 

Large  tongue,  moist  open  mouth  ;  and  this  long  while 

That  owner  of  the  idiotic  smile 

Serves  them  ! 

Nor  does  Browning  confine  himself  to  personages 
of  Bordello's  time.  There  are  admirable  portraits, 
but  somewhat  troubled  by  unnecessary  matter,  of 
Dante,  of  Charlemagne,  of  Hildebrand.  One  elab- 
orate portrait  is  continued  throughout  the  poem. 
It  is  that  of  Salinguerra,  the  man  of  action  as  con- 
trasted with  Sordello  the  dreamer.  Much  pains 
are  spent  on  this  by  Browning.     We  see  him  first 

in  the  streets  of  Ferrara. 

Men  understood 
Living  was  pleasant  to  him  as  he  wore 
His  careless  surcoat,  glanced  some  missive  o'er. 
Propped  on  his  truncheon  in  the  public  way. 

Then  at  the  games  at  Mantua,  when  he  is  told 
Sordello  will  not  come  to  sing  a  welcome  to  him. 
What  cares  he  for  poet's  whims .'' 

The  easy-natured  soldier  smiled  assent, 
Settled  his  portly  person,  smoothed  his  chin, 
And  nodded  that  the  bull-bait  might  begin. 

Then  mad  with  fighting  frenzy  in  the  sacking  of 
Vicenza,  then  in  his  palace  nursing  his  scheme  to 
make  the  Emperor  predominant,  then  pacing  hke  a 
lion,  hot  with  hope  of  mastering  all  Italy,  when  he 
finds  out  that  Sordello  is  his  son  :  "  hands  clenched, 
head  erect,  pursuing  his  discourse  —  crimson  ear, 
eyeballs  suffused,  temples  full  fraught." 

Then  in  the  fourth  book  there  is  a  long  portrait 
of  him  which  I  quote  as  a  full  specimen  of  the 
power  with  which  Browning  could  paint  a  partisan 


SORDELLO  195 

of  the  thirteenth  century.     Though  sixty  years  old, 
SaUnguerra  looked  like  a  youth  — 

So  agile,  quick 
And  graceful  turned  the  head  on  the  broad  chest 
Encased  in  pliant  steel,  his  constant  vest, 
Whence  split  the  sun  off  in  a  spray  of  fire 
Across  the  room  ;  and,  loosened  of  its  tire 
Of  steel,  that  head  let  breathe  the  comely  brown 
Large  massive  locks  discoloured  as  if  a  crown 
Encircled  them,  so  frayed  the  basnet  where 
A  sharp  white  hne  divided  clean  the  hair; 
Glossy  above,  glossy  below,  it  swept 
Curling  and  fine  about  a  brow  thus  kept 
Calm,  laid  coat  upon  coat,  marble  and  sound : 
This  was  the  mystic  mark  the  Tuscan  found. 
Mused  of,  turned  over  books  about.     Square-faced, 
No  lion  more ;  two  vivid  eyes,  enchased 
In  hollows  filled  with  many  a  shade  and  streak 
Settling  from  the  bold  nose  and  bearded  cheek. 
Nor  might  the  half-smile  reach  them  that  deformed 
A  lip  supremely  perfect  else  —  unwarmed, 
Unwidened,  less  or  more  ;  indifferent 
Whether  on  trees  or  men  his  thoughts  were  bent, 
Thoughts  rarely,  after  all,  in  trim  and  train 
As  now  a  period  was  fulfilled  again : 
Of  such,  a  series  made  his  life,  compressed 
In  each,  one  story  serving  for  the  rest. 

This  is  one  example  of  a  gallery  of  vivid  por- 
traiture in  all  Browning's  work,  such  as  Carlyle 
only  in  the  nineteenth  century  has  approached  in 
England.  It  is  not  a  national,  but  an  international 
gallery  of  portraits.  The  greater  number  of  the 
portraits  are  Italian,  and  they  range  over  all  classes 
of  society  from  the  Pope  to  the  peasant.  Even 
Bishop  Blougram  has  the  Italian  subtlety,  and,  like 
the  Monsignore  in  Pippa  Passes,  something  of  the 
politic  morality  of  Machiavelli.  But  Israel,  Greece, 
France,  Spain,  Germany,  and  the  days  before  the 


196  BROWNING 

world  was  brought  together,  furnish  him  with  men 
drawn  as  aUve.  He  has  painted  their  souls,  but 
others  have  done  this  kind  of  painting  as  well,  if 
not  so  minutely.  But  no  others  have  painted  so 
livingly  the  outside  of  men  —  their  features  one  by 
one,  their  carriage,  their  gestures,  their  clothing, 
their  walk,  their  body.  All  the  colours  of  their 
dress  and  eyes  and  lips  are  given.  We  see  them 
live  and  move  and  have  their  being.  It  is  the  same 
with  his  women,  but  I  keep  these  for  further  treat- 
ment. 

4.  The  next  thing  I  have  to  say  about  Sordcllo 
concerns  what  I  call  its  illustrative  episodes. 
Browning,  wishing  to  illuminate  his  subject,  some- 
times darts  off  from  it  into  an  elaborate  simile 
as  Homer  does.  But  in  Homer  the  simile  is 
carefully  set,  and  explained  to  be  a  comparison. 
It  is  not  mixed  up  with  the  text.  It  is  short, 
rarely  reaching  more  than  ten  lines.  In  Browning, 
it  is  glided  into  without  any  preparation,  and 
at  first  seems  part  of  the  story.  Nor  are 
we  always  given  any  intimation  of  its  end. 
And  Browning  is  led  away  by  his  imaginative 
pleasure  in  its  invention  to  work  it  up  with 
adventitious  ornament  of  colour  and  scenery ; 
having,  in  his  excitement  of  invention,  lost  all 
power  of  rejecting  any  additional  touch  which 
occurs  to  him,  so  that  the  illustration,  swelling 
out  into  a  preposterous  length,  might  well  be 
severed  from  the  book  and  made  into  a  separate 
poem.  Moreover,  these  long  illustrations  are  often 
but  faintly  connected  with  the  subject  they  are 
used  to  illumine  ;  and  they  delay  the  movement  of 
the   poem  while   they  confuse   the    reader.     The 


SORDELLO  197 

worst  of  these,  worst  as  an  illustration,  but  in  itself 
an  excellent  fragment  to  isolate  as  a  picture-poem, 
is  the  illustration  of  the  flying  slave  who  seeks  his 
tribe  beyond  the  Mountains  of  the  Moon.  It  is 
only  to  throw  Hght  on  a  moment  of  Salinguerra's 
discursive  thought,  and  is  far  too  big  for  that.  It 
is  more  like  an  episode  than  an  illustration.  I 
quote  it  not  only  to  show  what  I  mean,  but  also  for 
its  power.     It  is  in  Book  iv. 

As,  shall  I  say,  some  Ethiope,  past  pursuit 

Of  all  enslavers,  dips  a  shackled  foot 

Burnt  to  the  blood,  into  the  drowsy  black 

Enormous  watercourse  which  guides  him  back 

To  his  own  tribe  again,  where  he  is  king ; 

And  laughs  because  he  guesses,  numbering 

The  yellower  poison-wattles  on  the  pouch 

Of  the  first  lizard  wrested  from  its  couch 

Under  the  slime  (whose  skin,  the  while,  he  strips 

To  ere  his  nostril  with,  and  festered  lips. 

And  eyeballs  bloodshot  through  the  desert-blast) 

That  he  has  reached  its  boundary,  at  last 

May  breathe  ;  —  thinks  o'er  enchantments  of  the  South 

Sovereign  to  plague  his  enemies,  their  mouth. 

Eyes,  nails,  and  hair ;  but,  these  enchantments  tried 

In  fancy,  puts  them  soberly  aside 

For  truth,  projects  a  cool  return  with  friends, 

The  likelihood  of  winning  mere  amends 

Ere  long;  thinks  that,  takes  comfort  silently, 

Then,  from  the  river's  brink,  his  wrongs  and  he, 

Hugging  revenge  close  to  their  hearts,  are  soon 

Off-striding  for  the  Mountains  of  the  Moon. 

The  best  of  these  is  where  he  illustrates  the 
restless  desire  of  a  poet  for  the  renewal  of  energy, 
for  finding  new  worlds  to  sing.  The  poet  often 
seems  to  stop  his  work,  to  be  satisfied.  *'  Here  I 
will  rest,"  he  says,  *'  and  do  no  more,"  But  he 
only  waits  for  a  fresh  impulse. 


198  BROWNING 

Tis  but  a  sailor's  promise,  weather-bound : 

"  Strike  sail,  slip  cable,  here  the  bark  be  moored 

For  once,  the  awning  stretched,  the  poles  assured  ! 

Noontide  above ;  except  the  wave's  crisp  dash, 

Or  buzz  of  colibri,  or  tortoise'  splash. 

The  margin's  silent :  out  with  every  spoil 

Made  in  our  tracking,  coil  by  mighty  coil, 

This  serpent  of  a  river  to  his  head 

r  the  midst  !     Admire  each  treasure,  as  we  spread 

The  bank,  to  help  us  tell  our  history 

Aright ;  give  ear,  endeavour  to  descry 

The  groves  of  giant  rushes,  how  they  grew 

Like  demons'  endlong  tresses  we  sailed  through. 

What  mountains  yawned,  forests  to  give  us  vent 

Opened,  each  doleful  side,  yet  on  we  went 

Till  .  .  .  may  that  beetle  (shake  your  cap)  attest 

The  springing  of  a  land-wind  from  the  West  ! " 

—  Wherefore  ?     Ah  yes,  you  frolic  it  to-day! 

To-morrow,  and  the  pageant  moved  away 

Down  to  the  poorest  tent-pole,  we  and  you 

Part  company  :  no  other  may  pursue 

Eastward  your  voyage,  be  informed  what  fate 

Intends,  if  triumph  or  decline  await 

The  tempter  of  the  everlasting  steppe  ! 

This,  from  Book  iii.,  is  the  best  because  it  is 
closer  than  the  rest  to  the  matter  in  hand ;  but 
how  much  better  it  might  have  been !  How  curi- 
ously overloaded  it  is,  how  difificult  what  is  easy 
has  been  made  ! 

The  fault  of  these  illustrations  is  the  fault  of 
the  whole  poem.  Sordello  is  obscure,  Browning's 
idolaters  say,  by  concentration  of  thought.  It  is 
rather  obscure  by  want  of  that  wise  rejection  of  un- 
necessary thoughts  which  is  the  true  concentration. 
It  is  obscure  by  a  reckless  misuse  of  the  ordinary 
rules  of  language.  It  is  obscure  by  a  host  of 
parentheses  introduced  to  express  thoughts  which 
are   only  suggested,  half-shaped,    and  which   are 


SORDELLO  199 

frequently  interwoven  with  parentheses  introduced 
into  the  original  parentheses.  It  is  obscure  by  the 
worst  punctuation  I  ever  came  across,  but  this  was 
improved  in  the  later  editions.  It  is  obscure  by 
multitudinous  fancies  put  in  whether  they  have  to 
do  with  the  subject  or  not,  and  by  multitudinous 
deviations  within  those  fancies.  It  is  obscure  by 
Browning's  effort  to  make  words  express  more 
than  they  are  capable  of  expressing. 

It  is  no  carping  criticism  to  say  this  of  Brown- 
ing's work  in  Sonic llo,  because  it  is  the  very  criticism 
his  after-practice  as  an  artist  makes.  He  gave  up 
these  efforts  to  force,  like  Procrustes,  language  to 
stretch  itself  or  to  cut  itself  down  into  forms  it 
could  not  naturally  take ;  and  there  is  no  more 
difficulty  in  most  of  his  earlier  poems  than  there 
is  in  Paracelsus.  Only  a  little  of  the  Sordellian 
agonies  remains  in  them,  only  that  which  was 
natural  to  Browning's  genius.  The  interwoven 
parentheses  remain,  the  rushes  of  invention  into 
double  and  triple  illustrations,  the  multipHcation 
of  thought  on  thought ;  but  for  these  we  may  even 
be  grateful.  Opulence  and  plenitude  of  this  kind 
are  not  common ;  we  are  not  often  granted  a  man 
who  ilings  imaginations,  fancies,  and  thoughts  from 
him  as  thick  and  bright  as  sparks  from  a  grinder's 
wheel.  It  is  not  every  poet  who  is  unwilling  to 
leave  off,  who  finds  himself  too  full  to  stop. 
** These  bountiful  wits,"  as  Lamb  said,  "always 
give  full  measure,  pressed  down,  and  running 
over." 


CHAPTER  VII 

BROWNING  AND  SORDELLO 

THERE  are  certain  analogies  between  Brown- 
ing as  a  poet  and  the  Sordello  of  the  poem ; 
between  his  relation  to  the  world  of  his  time  and 
that  of  Sordello  to  his  time  ;  and  finally,  between 
Browning's  language  in  this  poem  and  the  change 
in  the  Italian  language  which  he  imputes  to  the 
work  of  Sordello.  This  chapter  will  discuss  these 
analogies,  and  close  with  an  appreciation  of  Brown- 
ing's position  between  the  classic  and  romantic 
schools  of  poetry. 

The  analogies  of  which  I  write  may  be  denied, 
but  I  do  not  think  they  can  be  disproved.  Brown- 
ing is,  no  doubt,  separate  from  Sordello  in  his 
own  mind,  but  underneath  the  young  poet  he 
is  creating,  he  is  continually  asking  himself  the 
same  question  which  Sordello  asks  —  What  shall  I 
do  as  an  artist }  To  what  conclusion  shall  I  come 
with  regard  to  my  life  as  a  poet?  It  is  no  small 
proof  of  this  underlying  personal  element  in  the 
first  three  books  of  the  poem  that  at  the  end  of  the 
third  book  Browning  flings  himself  suddenly  out  of 
the  mediaeval  world  and  the  men  he  has  created, 
and  waking  into  1835-40  at  Venice,  asks  himself  — 
What  am  I  writing,  and  why }    What  is  my  aim  in 

200 


BROWNING   AND   SORDELLO  201 

being  a  poet  ?  Is  it  worth  my  while  to  go  on  witli 
Sordello's  story,  and  why  is  it  worth  the  telHng  ? 
In  fact,  he  allows  us  to  think  that  he  has  been  de- 
scribing in  Sordello's  story  a  transitory  phase  of  his 
own  career.  And  then,  having  done  this,  he  tells 
how  he  got  out  of  confusion  into  clearer  light. 

The  analogy  between  Browning's  and  Sordello's 
time  is  not  a  weak  one.  The  spirit  of  the  world, 
between  1830  and  1840  in  England,  resembled  in 
many  ways  the  spirit  abroad  at  the  beginning  of 
the  thirteenth  century.  The  country  had  awakened 
out  of  a  long  sleep,  and  was  extraordinarily  curious 
not  only  w4th  regard  to  life  and  the  best  way  to 
live  it,  but  also  with  regard  to  government,  law, 
the  condition  of  the  people,  the  best  kind  of  religion 
and  how  best  to  live  it,  the  true  aims  of  poetry  and 
how  it  was  to  be  written,  what  subjects  it  should 
work  on,  what  was  to  be  the  mother-motive  of  it, 
that  is,  what  was  the  mother-motive  of  all  the  arts. 
And  this  curiosity  deepened  from  year  to  year  for 
fifty  years.  But  even  stronger  than  the  curiosity 
was  the  eager  individualism  of  this  time,  which  ex- 
tended into  every  sphere  of  human  thought  and 
action,  and  only  began  about  1866  to  be  balanced 
by  an  equally  strong  tendency  towards  collectivism. 

These  two  elements  in  the  time-spirit  did  not 
produce,  in  a  settled  state  like  England,  the  outw^ard 
war  and  confusion  they  produced  in  the  thirteenth 
century,  though  they  developed  after  1840,  in  '48, 
into  a  European  storm  —  but  they  did  produce  a 
confused  welter  of  mingled  thoughts  concerning  the 
sources  and  ends  of  human  life,  the  action  it  should 
take,  and  why  it  should  take  it.  The  poetry  of 
Arnold  and  Clough  represents  with  great  clearness 


202  BROWNING 

the  further  development  in  the  soul  of  man  of  this 
confusion.  I  think  that  Browning  has  represented 
in  the  first  three  books  of  Sordcllo  his  passage 
through  this  tossing  sea  of  thought. 

He  had  put  into  Paracelsus  all  that  he  had  worked 
out  with  clearness  during  his  youth;  his  theory  of  life 
is  stated  with  lucidity  in  that  poem.  But  when  it  was 
finished,  and  he  had  entered,  like  Sordello  from  Goito 
into  Mantua,  into  the  crowd  and  clash  of  the  world  ; 
when,  having  published  Pauline  and  Paracelsus^ 
he  had,  like  Sordello,  met  criticism  and  misunder- 
standing, his  Paracelsian  theory  did  not  seem  to 
explain  humanity  as  clearly  as  he  imagined.  It 
was  only  a  theory;  Would  it  stand  the  test  of  life 
among  mankind,  be  a  saving  and  healing  prophecy } 
Life  lay  before  him,  now  that  the  silent  philosophis- 
ing of  poetic  youth  was  over,  in  all  its  inexpHcable, 
hurried,  tormented,  involved,  and  multitudinously 
varied  movement.  He  had  built  up  a  transcen- 
dental building*  in  Paracelsus.  Was  it  all  to  fall 
in  ruin }  No  answer  came  when  he  looked  forth 
on  humanity  over  whose  landscape  the  irony  of 
the  gods,  a  bitter  mist,  seemed  to  brood.  At  what 
then  shall  he  aim  as  a  poet  1  What  shall  be  his 
subject-matter  ?     How  is  life  to  be  lived  } 

Then  he  thought  that  he  would,  as  a  poet,  de- 
scribe his  own  time  and  his  own  soul  under  the 
character  of  Sordello,  and  place  Sordello  in  a  time 
more  stormy  than  his  own.  And  he  would  make 
Sordello  of  an  exceptional  temper  like  himself,  and 

*  He  makes  a  simile  of  this  in  Sordello.  See  Book  iii.  before 
his  waking  up  in  Venice,  the  lines  beginning 

"  Rather  say 
My  transcendental  platan  !  " 


BROWNING   AND  SORDELLO  203 

to  clash  with  Ids  time  as  he  was  then  clashing 
with  his  own.  With  these  thoughts  he  wrote 
the  first  books  of  Sordello,  and  Naddo,  the  critic 
of  Sordello's  verses,  represents  the  critics  of 
Paracelsus  and  the  early  poems.  I  have  expe- 
rienced, he  says  of  himself  in  SordellOy  something 
of  the  spite  of  fate. 

Then,  having  done  this,  he  leaves  Sordello  at 
the  end  of  the  third  book,  and  turns,  beset  with 
a  thousand  questions,  to  himself  and  his  art  in  a 
personal  digression.  Reclining  on  a  ruined  palace 
step  at  Venice,  he  thinks  of  Eglamor  who  made 
a  flawless  song,  the  type  of  those  who  reach  their 
own  perfection  here ;  and  then  of  Sordello  who 
made  a  song  which  stirred  the  world  far  more 
than  Eglamor's,  which  yet  was  not  flawless,  not 
perfect ;  but  because  of  its  imperfection  looked  for- 
ward uncontented  to  a  higher  song.  Shall  he. 
Browning  the  poet,  choose  Eglamor  or  Sordello ; 
even  though  Sordello  perish  without  any  achieve- 
ment 1  And  he  chooses  to  sail  for  ever  towards  the 
infinite,  chooses  the  imperfection  which  looks  for- 
ward. A  sailor  who  loves  voyaging  may  say,  when 
weather-bound,  "  Here  rest,  unlade  the  ship,  sleep 
on  this  grassy  bank."  'Tis  but  a  moment  on  his 
path ;  let  the  wind  change,  and  he  is  away  again, 
whether  triumph  or  shipwreck  await  him,  for  ever 

The  tempter  of  the  everlasting  steppe. 

That  much  is  then  settled  for  life  and  for  poetry. 
And  in  that  choice  of  endless  aspiration  Browning 
confirms  all  that  he  thought,  with  regard  to  half  of 
his  theory  of  life,  in  Paracelsus.  This  is  his  first 
thought  for  life,  and  it  is  embodied  in  the  whole 


204  BROWNING 

of  Sordello's  career.  Sordello  is  never  content 
with  earth,  either  when  he  is  young,  or  when  he 
passes  into  the  world,  or  when  he  dies  not  having 
attained  or  been  ah*eady  perfect —  a  thought  which 
is  as  much  at  the  root  of  romanticism  as  of 
Christianity.  Then  comes  the  further  question  : 
To  whom  shall  I  dedicate  the  service  of  my  art  ? 
Who  shall  be  my  motive,  the  Queen  whom  I  shall 
love  and  write  of ;  and  he  thinks  of  Sordello  who 
asks  that  question  and  who,  for  the  time,  answers 
*'  Palma,"  that  is,  the  passion  of  love. 

"  But  now,  shall  I,  Browning,  take  as  my  Queen  " 
—  and  he  symbolises  his  thought  in  the  girls  he  sees 
in  the  boats  from  his  palace  steps  —  "that  girl  from 
Bassano,  or  from  Asolo,  or  her  from  Padua ;  that 
is,  shall  I  write  of  youth's  love,  of  its  tragic  or  its 
comedy,  of  its  darkness,  joy,  and  beauty  only  .-* 
No,"  he  answers,  "not  of  that  stuff  shall  I  make 
my  work,  but  of  that  sad  dishevelled  ghost  of  a  girl, 
half  in  rags,  with  eyes  inveterately  full  of  tears ; 
of  wild,  worn,  care-bitten,  ravishing,  piteous,  and 
pitiful  Humanity,  who  begs  of  me  and  offers  me 
her  faded  love  in  the  street  corners.  She  shall  be 
my  Queen,  the  subject  of  my  song,  the  motive  of 
my  poetry.  She  may  be  guilty,  warped  awry 
from  her  birth,  and  now  a  tired  harlotry  ;  but  she 
shall  rest  on  my  shoulder  and  I  shall  comfort  her. 
She  is  false,  mistaken,  degraded,  ignorant,  but  she 
moves  blindly  from  evil  to  good,  and  from  lies  to 
truth,  and  from  ignorance  to  knowledge,  and  from 
all  to  love  ;  and  all  her  errors  prove  that  she  has 
another  world  in  which,  the  errors  being  worked 
through,  she  will  develop  into  perfectness.  Slowly 
she  moves,  step  by  step ;  but  not  a  millionth  part 


BROWNING  AND  SORDELLO  205 

is  here  done  of  what  she  will  do  at  last.  That  is 
the  matter  of  my  poetry,  which,  in  its  infinite 
change  and  hopes,  I  shall  express  in  my  work.  I 
shall  see  it,  say  what  I  have  seen,  and  it  may  be 

Impart  the  gift  of  seeing  to  the  rest. 

Therefore  I  have  made  Sordello,  thus  far,  with  all 

his  weakness  and  wrong —    • 

moulded,  made  anew 
A  Man,  and  give  him  to  be  turned  and  tried, 
Be  angry  with  or  pleased  at." 

And  then  Browning  severs  himself  from  Sordello. 
After  this  retirement  of  thought  into  himself, 
described  as  taking  place  in  Venice  during  an 
hour,  but  I  dare  say  ranging  over  half  a  year  in 
reality,  he  tells  the  rest  of  Sordello's  story  from 
the  outside,  as  a  spectator  and  describer. 

Browning  has  now  resolved  to  dedicate  his  art, 
which  is  his  life,  to  love  of  Humanity,  of  that  pale 
dishevelled  girl,  unlovely  and  lovely,  evil  and 
good ;  and  to  tell  the  story  of  individual  men  and 
women,  and  of  as  many  as  possible ;  to  paint  the 
good  which  is  always  mixed  with  their  evil ;  to 
show  that  their  failures  and  sins  point  to  a  success 
and  goodness  beyond,  because  they  emerged  from 
aspiration  and  aspiration  from  the  divinity  at  the 
root  of  human  nature.  But  to  do  this,  a  poet 
must  not  live  like  Sordello,  in  abstractions,  nor 
shrink  from  the  shock  of  men  and  circumstance, 
nor  refuse  to  take  men  and  life  as  they  are  —  but 
throw  himself  into  the  vital  present,  with  its  diffi- 
culties, baffling  elements  and  limitations ;  take  its 
failures  for  his  own ;  go  through  them  while  he 
looks  beyond  them,  and,  because  he  looks  beyond 


2o6  BROWNING 

them,  never  lose  hope,  or  retreat  from  life,  or  cease 
to  fight  his  way  onward.  And,  to  support  him  in 
this,  there  is  but  one  thing  —  infinite  love,  pity,  and 
sympathy  for  mankind,  increased,  not  lessened  by 
knowledge  of  the  sins  and  weakness,  the  failure 
and  despairs  of  men.  This  is  Browning's  second 
thought  for  life.  But  this  is  the  very  thing  Sordello, 
as  conceived  by  Browning,  did  not  and  could  not  do. 
He  lived  in  abstractions  and  in  himself ;  he  tried  to 
discard  his  human  nature,  or  to  make  it  bear  more 
than  it  could  bear.  He  threw  overboard  the  natu- 
ral physical  life  of  the  body  because  it  limited,  he 
thought,  the  outgoings  of  the  imaginative  soul,  and 
only  found  that  in  weakening  the  body  he  enfeebled 
the  soul.  At  every  point  he  resented  the  limits  of 
human  life  and  fought  against  them.  Neither 
would  he  live  in  the  world  allotted  to  him,  nor 
among  the  men  of  his  time,  nor  in  its  turmoil ;  but 
only  in  imagination  of  his  own  inner  world,  among 
men  whom  he  created  for  himself,  of  which  world 
he  was  to  be  sole  king.  He  had  no  love  for  men  ; 
they  wearied,  jarred,  and  disturbed  his  ideal  world. 
All  he  wanted  was  their  applause  or  their  silence, 
not  their  criticism,  not  their  affection.  And  of 
course  human  love  and  sympathy  for  men  and 
insight  into  them,  departed  from  him,  and  with 
them  his  art  departed.  He  never  became  a  true 
poet. 

It  is  this  failure,  passing  through  several  phases 
of  life  in  which  action  is  demanded  of  Sordello, 
that  Browning  desired  to  record  in  the  last  three 
books  of  the  poem.  And  he  thinks  it  worth  doing 
because  it  is  human,  and  the  record  of  what  is  hu- 
man is  always  of  worth  to  man.    He  paints  Sordello's 


BROWNING  AND  SORDELLO  207 

passage  through  phase  after  phase  of  thought 
and  act  in  the  outside  world,  in  all  of  which  he 
seems  for  the  moment  to  succeed  or  to  touch  the 
verge  of  success,  but  in  which  his  neglect  of  the 
needs  of  the  body,  and  the  uncontentment  of  his 
soul  produces  failure.  At  last,  at  the  very  moment 
of  death  he  knows  why  he  failed,  and  sees,  as 
through  a  glass  darkly,  the  failure  making  the 
success  of  the  world  to  come.  The  revelation 
bursts  his  heart. 

And  now  what  is  the  end,  what  is  the  result  for 
man  of  this  long  striving  of  Sordello  }  Nothing ! 
Nothing  has  been  done.  Yet  no,  there  is  one  re- 
sult. The  imperfect  song  he  made  when  he  was 
young  at  Goito,  in  the  flush  of  happiness,  when  he 
forgot  himself  in  love  of  Nature  and  of  the  young 
folk  who  wandered  rejoicing  through  the  loveliness 
of  Nature  —  that  song  is  still  alive,  not  in  the  great 
world  among  the  noble  women  and  warriors  of  the 
time,  but  on  the  hps  of  the  peasant  girls  of  Asolo 
who  sing  it  on  dewy  mornings  when  they  climb  the 
castle  hill.  This  is  the  outcome  of  Sordello's  life, 
and  it  sounds  like  irony  on  Browning's  lips.  It  is 
not  so ;  the  irony  is  elsewhere  in  the  poem,  and  is 
of  another  kind.  Here,  the  conclusion  is,  —  that 
the  poem,  or  any  work  of  art,  made  in  joy,  in 
sympathy  with  human  life,  moved  by  the  love  of 
loveHness  in  man  or  in  Nature,  lives  and  lasts  in 
beauty,  heals  and  makes  happy  the  world.  And  it 
has  its  divine  origin  in  the  artist's  loss  of  himself 
in  humanity,  and  his  finding  of  himself,  through 
union  with  humanity,  in  union  with  God  the 
eternal  poet.  In  this  is  hidden  the  life  of  an 
artist's  greatness.     And  here  the  little  song,  which 


2o8  BROWNING 

gives  joy  to  a  child,  and  fits  in  with  and  enhances 
its  joy,  is  greater  in  the  eyes  of  the  immortal  judges 
than  all  the  glory  of  the  world  which  Sordello 
sought  so  long  for  himself  alone.  It  is  a  truth 
Browning  never  failed  to  record,  the  greatness  and 
power  of  the  things  of  love ;  for,  indeed,  love 
being  infinite  and  omnipotent,  gives  to  its  smallest 
expression  the  glory  of  all  its  qualities. 

The  second  of  these  analogies  between  Browning 
and  Sordello  relates  to  Browning's  treatment  of 
the  English  language  in  the  poem  of  Sordello  and 
what  he  pictures  Sordello  as  doing  for  the  Italian 
language  in  the  poem.  The  passage  to  which  I 
refer  is  about  half-way  in  the  second  book.  As 
there  is  no  real  ground  for  representing  Sordello 
as  working  any  serious  change  in  the  Italian  tongue 
of  literature  except  a  slight  phrase  in  a  treatise  of 
Dante's,  the  representation  is  manifestly  an  in- 
vention of  Browning's  added  to  the  character  of 
Sordello  as  conceived  by  himself.  As  such  it 
probably  comes  out  of,  and  belongs  to,  his  own 
experience.  The  Sordello  who  acts  thus  with 
language  represents  the  action  of  Browning  him- 
self at  the  time  he  was  writing  the  poem.  If  so, 
the  passage  is  full  of  interest. 

All  we  know  about  Sordello  as  a  poet  is  that  he 
wrote  some  Italian  poems.  Those  by  which  he 
was  famous  were  in  Provengal.  In  Dante's  trea- 
tise on  the  use  of  his  native  tongue,  he  suggests 
that  Sordello  was  one  of  the  pioneers  of  literary 
Italian.  So,  at  least.  Browning  seems  to  infer 
from  the  passage,  for  he  makes  it  the  motive  of 
his  little  "excursus"  on  Sordello's  presumed  effort 
to  strike  out  a  new  form  and  method  in  poetic  Ian- 


BROWNING  AND  SORDELLO  209 

guage.  Nothing  was  more  needed  than  such  an 
effort  if  any  fine  Hterature  were  to  arise  in  Italy. 
In  this  unformed  but  slowly  forming  thirteenth 
century  the  language  was  in  as  great  a  confusion 

—  and,  I  may  say,  as  individual  (for  each  poet 
wrote  in  his  own  dialect)  as  the  life  of  the  century. 

What  does  Browning  make  Sordello  do  ?  He 
has  brought  him  to  Mantua  as  the  accepted  master 
of  song;  and  Sordello  burns  to  be  fully  recog- 
nised as  the  absolute  poet.  He  has  felt  for  some 
time  that  while  he  cannot  act  well  he  can  imagine 
action  well.  And  he  sings  his  imaginations.  But 
there  is  at  the  root  of  his  singing  a  love  of  the 
applause  of  the  people  more  than  a  love  of  song 
for  itself.  And  he  fails  to  please.  So  Sordello 
changes  his  subject  and  sings  no  longer  of  himself 
in  the  action  of  the  heroes  he  imagines,  but  of 
abstract  ideas,  philosophic  dreams,  and  problems. 
The  very  critics  cried  that  he  had  left  human  nature 
behind  him.  Vexed  at  his  failure,  and  still  longing 
to  catch  the  praise  of  men,  that  he  may  confirm  his 
belief  that  he  is  the  loftiest  of  poets,  he  makes 
another  effort  to  amaze  the  world.  "I'll  write  no 
more  of  imaginary  things,"  he  cries ;  "  I  will 
catch  the  crowd  by  reorganising  the  language  of 
poetry,  by  new  arrangements  of  metre  and  words, 
by  elaborate  phraseology,  especially  by  careful 
concentration  of  thought  into  the  briefest  possible 
frame  of  words.     I  will  take  the  stuff  of  thought, 

—  that  is,  the  common  language,  —  beat  it  on  the 
anvil  into  new  shapes,  break  down  the  easy  flow 
of  the  popular  poetry,  and  scarcely  allow  a  tithe 
of  the  original  words  I  have  written  to  see  the 
light, 

p 


2IO  BROWNING 

welding  words  into  the  crude 
Mass  from  the  new  speech  round  him,  till  a  rude 
Armour  was  hammered  out,  in  time  to  be 
Approved  beyond  the  Roman  panoply 
Melted  to  make  it. 

That  is,  he  dissolved  the  Roman  dialect  to  beat  out 
of  it  an  Italian  tongue.  And  in  this  new  armour 
of  language  he  clothed  his  thoughts.  But  the 
language  broke  away  from  his  thoughts :  neither 
expressed  them  nor  made  them  clear.  The  people 
failed  to  understand  his  thought,  and  at  the  new 
ways  of  using  language  the  critics  sneered.  *'  Do 
get  back,"  they  said,  ''  to  the  simple  human  heart, 
and  tell  its  tales  in  the  simple  language  of  the 
people." 

I  do  not  think  that  the  analogy  can  be  missed. 
Browning  is  really  describing  —  with,  perhaps,  a 
half-scornful  reference  to  his  own  desire  for  public 
appreciation  —  what  he  tried  to  do  in  Soi^dcllo  for 
the  language  in  which  his  poetry  was  to  be  written. 
I  have  said  that  when  he  came  to  write  Sordcllo 
his  mind  had  fallen  back  from  the  clear  theory  of 
life  laid  down  in  Paracelsus  into  a  tumbled  sea 
of  troubled  thoughts ;  and  Sordcllo  is  a  welter  of 
thoughts  tossing  up  and  down,  now  appearing,  then 
disappearing,  and  then  appearing  again  in  conjunc- 
tion with  new  matter,  like  objects  in  a  sea  above 
which  a  cyclone  is  blowing.  Or  we  may  say  that 
his  mind,  before  and  during  the  writing  of  Sordcllo^ 
was  like  the  thirteenth  century,  pressing  blindly  in 
vital  disturbance  towards  an  unknown  goal.  That 
partly  accounts  for  the  confused  recklessness  of  the 
language  of  the  poem.  But  a  great  many  of  the 
tricks  Browning  now  played  with  his  poetic  language 


BROWNING  AND  SORDELLO  211 

were  deliberately  done.  He  had  tried  —  like  Sor- 
dello  at  the  Court  of  Love — a  love-poem  in  Pauline. 
It  had  not  succeeded.  He  had  tried  in  Paracelsus 
to  expose  an  abstract  theory  of  life,  as  Sordello 
had  tried  writing  on  abstract  imaginings.  That 
also  had  failed.  Now  he  determined  —  as  he  repre- 
sents Sordello  doing  —  to  alter  his  whole  way  of 
writing.  "  I  will  concentrate  now,"  he  thought, 
"  since  they  say  I  am  too  loose  and  too  diffuse ; 
cut  away  nine-tenths  of  all  I  write,  and  leave  out 
every  word  I  can  possibly  omit.  I  will  not  express 
completely  what  I  think;  I  shall  only  suggest  it  by 
an  illustration.  And  if  anything  occur  to  me  likely 
to  illuminate  it,  I  shall  not  add  it  afterwards  but 
insert  it  in  a  parenthesis.  I  will  make  a  new 
tongue  for  my  poetry."  And  the  result  was  the 
style  and  the  strange  manner  in  which  Sordello 
was  written.  This  partly  excuses  its  obscurity,  if 
deliberation  can  be  an  excuse  for  a  bad  manner 
in  literature.  Malice  prepense  does  not  excuse  a 
murder,  though  it  makes  it  more  interesting. 
Finally,  the  manner  in  which  Sordello  was  written 
did  not  please  him.  He  left  it  behind  him,  and 
Pippa  Passes,  which  followed  Sordello,  is  as  clear 
and  simple  as  its  predecessor  is  obscure  in  style. 

Thirdly,  the  language  of  Sordello,  and,  in  a  lesser 
degree,  that  of  all  Browning's  poetry,  proves  —  if 
his  whole  way  of  thought  and  passion  did  not  also 
prove  it  —  that  Browning  was  not  a  classic,  that 
he  deliberately  put  aside  the  classic  traditions  in 
poetry.  In  this  he  presents  a  strong  contrast  to 
Tennyson.  Tennyson  was  possessed  by  those 
traditions.  His  masters  were  Homer,  Vergil, 
Milton,   and   the   rest   of    those  who   wrote   with 


212  BROWNING 

measure,  purity,  and  temperance;  and  from  whose 
poetry  proceeded  a  spirit  of  order,  of  tranquillity, 
of  clearness,  of  simplicity ;  who  were  reticent  in 
ornament,  in  illustration,  and  stern  in  rejection  of 
unnecessary  material.  None  of  these  classic  ex- 
cellences belong  to  Browning,  nor  did  he  ever 
try  to  gain  them,  and  that  was,  perhaps,  a  pity. 
But,  after  all,  it  would  have  been  of  no  use  had  he 
tried  for  them.  We  cannot  impose  from  without 
on  ourselves  that  which  we  have  not  within ;  and 
Browning  was,  in  spirit,  a  pure  Romantic,  not  a 
Classic.  Tennyson  never  allowed  what  romanti- 
cism he  possessed  to  have  its  full  swing.  It  always 
wore  the  classic  dress,  submitted  itself  to  the 
classic  traditions,  used  the  classic  forms.  In  the 
Idylls  of  the  King  he  took  a  romantic  story ;  but 
nothing  could  be  more  unromantic  than  many  of 
the  inventions  and  the  characters ;  than  the 
temper,  the  morahty,  and  the  conduct  of  the  poem. 
The  Arthurian  poets,  Malory  himself,  would  have 
jumped  out  their  skin  with  amazement,  even  with 
indignation,  had  they  read  it.  And  a  great  deal 
of  this  oddity,  this  unfitness  of  the  matter  to  the 
manner,  arose  from  the  romantic  story  being  ex- 
pressed in  poetry  written  in  accordance  with  classic 
traditions.  Of  course,  there  were  other  sources  for 
these  inharmonies  in  the  poem,  but  that  was  one, 
and  not  the  least  of  them. 

Browning  had  none  of  these  classic  traditions, 
lie  had  his  own  matter,  quite  new  stuff  it  was; 
and  he  made  his  own  manner.  He  did  not  go 
back  to  the  old  stories,  but,  being  filled  with  the 
romantic  spirit,  embodied  it  in  new  forms,  and 
drenched  with  it  his   subjects,  whether  he   took 


BROWNING  AND  SORDELLO  213 

them  from  ancient,  mediaeval,  Renaissance,  or 
modern  life.  He  felt,  and  truly,  that  it  is  of  the 
essence  of  romanticism  to  be  always  arising  into 
new  shapes,  assimilating  itself,  century  by  century, 
to  the  needs,  the  thought,  and  the  passions  of  grow- 
ing mankind ;  progressive,  a  lover  of  change ;  in 
steady  opposition  to  that  dull  conservatism  the 
tendency  to  which  besets  the  classic  literature. 

Browning  had  the  natural  faults  of  the  romantic 
poet ;  and  these  are  most  remarkable  when  such  a 
poet  is  young.  The  faults  are  the  opposites  of  the 
classic  poet's  excellences :  want  of  measure,  want 
of  proportion,  want  of  clearness  and  simplicity, 
want  of  temperance,  want  of  that  selective  power 
which  knows  what  to  leave  out  or  when  to  stop. 
And  these  frequently  become  positive  and  end  in 
actual  disorder  of  composition,  huddling  of  the 
matters  treated  of  into  ill-digested  masses,  vio- 
lence in  effects  and  phrase,  bewildering  obscurity, 
sought-out  even  desperate  strangeness  of  subject 
and  expression,  uncompromising  individuality,  crude 
ornament,  and  iierce  colour.  Many  examples  of 
these  faults  are  to  be  found  in  Sordello  and  through- 
out the  work  of  Browning.  They  are  the  extremes 
into  which  the  Romantic  is  frequently  hurried. 

But,  then,  Browning  has  the  natural  gifts  and 
excellences  of  the  romantic  poet,  and  these  ele- 
ments make  him  dearer  than  the  mere  Classic  to  a 
multitude  of  imaginative  persons.  One  of  them  is 
endless  and  impassioned  curiosity,  for  ever  unsat- 
isfied, always  finding  new  worlds  of  thought  and 
feeling  into  which  to  make  dangerous  and  thrilling 
voyages  of  discovery  —  voyages  that  are  filled  from 
end  to  end  with  incessantly  changing  adventure, 


214  BROWNING 

or  delight  in  that  adventure.  This  enchants  the 
world.  And  it  is  not  only  in  his  subjects  that  the 
romantic  poet  shows  his  curiosity.  He  is  just  as 
curious  of  new  methods  of  tragedy,  of  lyric  work, 
of  every  mode  of  poetry ;  of  new  ways  of  express- 
ing old  thoughts  ;  new  ways  of  treating  old  metres ; 
of  the  invention  of  new  metres  and  new  ways  of 
phrasing ;  of  strange  and  startling  word-combina- 
tions, to  clothe  fittingly  the  strange  and  startHng 
things  discovered  in  human  nature,  in  one's  own 
soul,  or  in  the  souls  of  others.  In  ancient  days 
such  a  temper  produced  the  many  tales  of  inven- 
tion which  filled  the  romantic  cycles. 

Again  and  again,  from  century  to  century,  this 
romantic  spirit  has  done  its  re-creating  work  in  the 
development  of  poetry  in  France,  Germany,  Italy, 
Spain,  and  England.  And  in  1840,  and  for  many 
years  afterwards,  it  produced  in  Browning,  and  for 
our  pleasure,  his  dramatic  lyrics  as  he  called  them; 
his  psychological  studies,  which  I  may  well  call 
excursions,  adventures,  battles,  pursuits,  retreats, 
discoveries  of  the  soul ;  for  in  the  soul  of  man  lay, 
for  Browning,  the  forest  of  Broceliande,  the  wild 
country  of  Morgan  le  Fay,  the  cliffs  and  moors 
of  Lyonnesse.  It  was  there,  over  that  unfooted 
country,  that  Childe  Roland  rode  to  the  Dark 
Tower.  Nor  can  anything  be  more  in  the  temper 
of  old  spiritual  romance  —  though  with  a  strangely 
modern  misc-eii-schie  —  than  the  great  adventure 
on  the  dark  common  with  Christ  in  CJwistmas-Eve 
a?id  Easter-Day. 

Another  root  of  the  romantic  spirit  was  the 
sense  of,  and  naturally  the  belief  in,  a  world  not 
to  be  felt  of  the  senses  or  analysed  by  the  under- 


BROWNING  AND  SORDELLO  215 

standing ;  which  was  within  the  apparent  world  as 
its  substance  or  soul,  or  beyond  it  as  the  power 
by  which  it  existed ;  and  this  mystic  belief  took, 
among  poets,  philosophers,  theologians,  warriors, 
and  the  common  people,  a  thousand  forms,  ranging 
from  full-schemed  philosophies  to  the  wildest  super- 
stitions. It  tended,  in  its  extremes,  to  make  this 
world  a  shadow,  a  dream ;  and  our  life  only  a 
real  life  when  it  habitually  dwelt  in  the  mystic 
region  mortal  eye  could  not  see,  whose  voices 
mortal  ear  could  not  receive.  Out  of  this  root, 
which  shot  its  first  fibres  into  the  soul  of  human- 
ity in  the  days  of  the  earliest  savage  and  separated 
him  by  an  unfathomable  gulf  from  the  brute,  arose 
all  the  myths  and  legends  and  mystic  stories  which 
fill  romance.  Out  of  it  developed  the  unquench- 
able thirst  of  those  of  the  romantic  temper  for 
communion  with  the  spiritual  beings  of  this  mys- 
tic world ;  a  thirst  which,  however  repressed  for  a 
time,  begins  again,  and  is  even  now  arising,  among 
the  poets  of  to-day. 

In  Browning's  view  of  the  natural  world  some 
traces  of  this  element  of  the  romantic  spirit  may  be 
distinguished,  but  in  his  poetry  of  Man  it  scarcely 
appears.  Nor,  indeed,  is  he  ever  the  true  mystic. 
He  had  too  much  of  the  sense  which  handles  daily 
life  ;  he  saw  the  facts  of  life  too  clearly,  to  fall  into 
the  vaguer  regions  of  mysticism.  But  one  part  of 
its  region,  and  of  the  romantic  spirit,  so  incessantly 
recurs  in  Browning  that  it  may  be  said  to  underlie 
the  whole  of  his  work.  It  is  that  into  which  the 
thoughts  and  passions  of  the  romantic  poets  in  all 
ages  ran  up,  as  into  a  goal  —  the  conception  of  a 
perfect  world,  beyond  this  visible,  in  which  the 


2i6  BROWNIN'G 

noble  hopes,  loves,  and  work  of  humanity  —  baffled, 
limited,  and  ruined  here  —  should  be  fulfilled  and 
satisfied.  The  Greeks  did  not  frame  this  concep- 
tion as  a  people,  though  Plato  outreached  towards 
it ;  the  Romans  had  it  not,  though  Vergil  seems 
to  have  touched  it  in  hours  of  inspiration.  The 
Teutonic  folk  did  not  possess  it  till  Christianity 
invaded  them.  Of  course,  it  was  alive  like  a 
beating  heart  in  Christianity,  that  most  romantic 
of  all  religions.  But  the  Celtic  peoples  did  con- 
ceive it  before  Christianity  and  with  a  surprising 
fulness,  and  wherever  they  went  through  Europe 
they  pushed  it  into  the  thought,  passions,  and  action 
of  human  life.  And  out  of  this  conception,  which 
among  the  Irish  took  form  as  the  Land  of  Eternal 
Youth,  love,  and  joy,  where  human  trouble  ceased, 
grew  that  element  in  romance  which  is  perhaps  the 
strongest  in  it — the  hunger  for  eternity,  for  infi- 
nite perfection  of  being,  and,  naturally,  for  unre- 
mitting pursuit  of  it;  and  among  Christian  folk 
for  a  life  here  which  should  fit  them  for  perfect 
life  to  come.  Christian  romance  threw  itself  with 
fervour  into  that  ideal,  and  the  pursuit,  for  exam- 
ple, of  the  Holy  Grail  is  only  one  of  the  forms  of 
this  hunger  for  eternity  and  perfection. 

Browning  possessed  this  element  of  romance 
with  remarkable  fulness,  and  expressed  it  with  un- 
diminished ardour  for  sixty  years  of  poetic  work. 
From  Patcline  to  Asolando  it  reigns  supreme.  It 
is  the  fountain-source  of  Sordello  —  by  the  perva- 
siveness of  which  the  poem  consists.  Immortal 
life  in  God's  perfection  !  Into  that  cry  the  Roman- 
tic's hunger  for  eternity  had  developed  in  the  soul 
of  Browning.     His  heroes,  in  drama  and  lyric,  in 


BROWNING  AND  SORDELLO  217 

Paracelsus  and  Sordello,  pass  into  the  infinite,  there 
to  be  completed. 

And  if  I  may  here  introduce  a  kind  of  note,  it  is 
at  this  moment  that  we  ought  to  take  up  the  Piirga- 
toriOy  and  see  Sordello  as  Dante  saw  him  in  that  flow- 
ery valley  of  the  Ante-Purgatory  when  he  talked  with 
Dante  and  Vergil.  He  is  there  a  very  different 
person  from  the  wavering  creature  Browning  drew. 
He  is  on  the  way  to  that  perfect  fulfilment  in  God 
which  Browning  desired  for  him  and  all  mankind. 

Nevertheless,  in  order  to  complete  this  statement, 
Browning,  in  his  full  idea  of  life,  was  not  altogether 
a  Romantic.  He  saw  there  was  a  great  danger 
that  the  romantic  mysticism  might  lead  its  pursuers 
to  neglect  the  duties  of  life,  or  lessen  their  interest 
in  the  drama  of  mankind.  Therefore  he  added 
to  his  cry  for  eternity  and  perfection,  his  other 
cry  :  '*  Recognise  your  limitations,  and  work  within 
them,  while  you  must  never  be  content  with  them. 
Give  yourself  in  love  and  patience  to  the  present 
labour  of  mankind;  but  never  imagine  for  a 
moment  that  it  ends  on  earth."  He  thus  combined 
with  the  thirst  of  the  Romantic  for  eternity  the  full 
ethical  theory  of  life,  as  well  as  the  classic  poet's 
determination  to  represent  the  complete  aspect  of 
human  life  on  earth.  At  this  point,  but  with 
many  fantastic  deviations  due  to  his  prevaihng 
romanticism,  he  was  partly  of  the  classic  temper. 
The  poem  of  Sordello  is  not  without  an  image  of 
this  temper,  set  vigorously  in  contrast  with  Sordello 
himself.  This  is  Salinguerra,  who  takes  the  world 
as  it  is,  and  is  only  anxious  to  do  what  Hes  before 
him  day  by  day.  His  long  soliloquy,  in  which  for 
the  moment  he   indulges   in  dreams,  ends  in  the 


2i8  BROWNING 

simple  resolution  to  fight  on,  hour  by  hour,  as  cir- 
cumstances call  on  him. 

Browning's  position,  then,  is  a  combination  of  the 
romantic  and  classical,  of  the  Christian  and  ethical, 
of  the  imaginative  and  scientific  views  of  human 
life ;  of  the  temper  which  says,  *'  Here  only  is  our 
life,  here  only  our  concern,"  and  that  which  says, 
**  Not  here,  but  hereafter  is  our  Hfe."  "  Here,  and 
hereafter,"  answered  Browning.  "  Live  within 
earth's  limits  with  all  your  force;  never  give  in, 
fight  on ;  but  always  transcend  your  fullest  action 
in  aspiration,  faith,  and  love." 

It  amuses  me  sometimes  the  way  he  is  taken  by 
his  readers.  The  romantic  and  the  Christian  folk 
often  claim  him  as  the  despiser  of  this  world,  as  one 
who  bids  us  live  wholly  for  the  future,  or  in  the  mys- 
tic ranges  of  thought  and  passion.  The  scientific, 
humanitarian,  and  ethical  folk  accept  that  side  of 
him  which  agrees  with  their  views  of  human  life  — 
views  which  exclude  God,  immortality,  and  a  world 
beyond  —  that  is,  they  take  as  the  whole  of  Brown- 
ing the  lesser  part  of  his  theory  of  life.  This  is 
not  creditable  to  their  understanding,  though  it  is 
natural  enough.  We  may  accept  it  as  an  innocent 
example  of  the  power  of  a  strong  bias  in  human 
nature.  But  it  is  well  to  remember  that  the 
romantic.  Christian,  mystic  elements  of  human  life 
are  more  important  in  Browning's  eyes  than  the 
ethical  or  scientific ;  that  the  latter  are  nothing  to 
him  without  the  former ;  that  the  best  efforts  of  the 
latter  for  humanity  are  in  his  belief  not  only  hope- 
less, but  the  stuff  that  dreams  are  made  of,  with- 
out the  former.  In  the  combination  of  both  is 
Browning's  message  to  mankind. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  DRAMAS 

OF    the    great    poets    who,   not    being    born 
dramatists,  have  attempted  to  write  dramas 
in  poetry,  Browning  was  the  most  persevering.     I 
suppose  that,  being  conscious  of   his  remarkable 
power  in  the  representation  of  momentary  action 
and  of  states  of  the  soul,  he  thought  that  he  could 
harmonise  into  a  whole  the  continuous  action  of  a 
number  of  persons,  and  of  their  passions  in  sword- 
play  with    one  another;    and   then  conduct   to  a 
catastrophe  their  interaction.     But  a  man  may  be 
capable  of   writing   dramatic  lyrics  and  dramatic 
romances    without    being    capable    of   writing    a 
drama.     Indeed,  so  different  are  the  two  capabili- 
ties that  I  think  the  true  dramatist  could  not  write 
such  a  lyric  or  romance  as  Browning  calls  dramatic ; 
his  genius  would  carry  one  or  the  other  beyond  the 
just  Hmits  of  this  kind  of  poetry  into  his  own  kind. 
And  the  writer  of  excellent  lyrics  and  romances  of 
this  kind  will  be  almost  sure  to  fail  in  real  drama. 
I  wish,  in  order  to  avoid  confusion  of  thought,  that 
the  term  "  dramatic  "  were  only  used  of  poetry  which 
belongs  to  drama   itself.     I    have  heard  Chaucer 
called  dramatic.     It  is  a  complete  misnomer.     His 
genius  would  have  for  ever  been  unable  to  produce 

219 


220  BROWNING 

a  good  drama.  Had  he  lived  in  Elizabeth's  time,  he 
would,  no  doubt,  have  tried  to  write  one,  but  he  must 
have  failed.  The  genius  for  story-telling  is  just  the 
genius  which  is  incapable  of  being  a  fine  dramatist. 
And  the  opposite  is  also  true.  Shakespeare,  great 
as  his  genius  was,  would  not  have  been  able  to  write 
a  single  one  of  the  Canterbury  Tales.  He  would 
have  been  driven  into  dramatising  them. 

Neither  Tennyson  nor  Browning  had  dramatic 
genius  —  that  is,  the  power  to  conceive,  build,  co- 
ordinate, and  finish  a  drama.  But  they  thought 
they  had,  and  we  may  pardon  them  for  trying  their 
hand.  I  can  understand  the  hunger  and  thirst 
which  beset  great  poets,  who  had,  like  these  two 
men,  succeeded  in  so  many  different  kinds  of 
poetry,  to  succeed  also  in  the  serious  drama, 
written  in  poetry.  It  is  a  legitimate  ambition  ;  but 
poets  should  be  acquainted  with  their  limitations, 
and  not  waste  their  energies  or  our  patience  on 
work  which  they  cannot  do  well.  That  men  like 
Tennyson  and  Browning,  who  were  profoundly 
capable  of  understanding  what  a  great  drama 
means,  and  is ;  who  had  read  what  the  master- 
tragedians  of  Greece  have  done ;  who  knew  their 
Shakespeare,  to  say  nothing  of  the  other  EHzabethan 
dramatists ;  who  had  seen  Moliere  on  the  stage ; 
who  must  have  felt  how  the  thing  ought  to  be 
done,  composed,  and  versed ;  that  they,  having 
written  a  play  like  Harold  or  Strafford,  should 
really  wish  to  stage  it,  or  having  heard  and  seen  it 
on  the  stage  should  go  on  writing  more  dramas, 
would  seem  incomprehensible,  were  it  not  that 
power  to  do  one  thing  very  well  is  so  curiously 
liable  to  self-deceit. 


THE  DRAMAS  221 

The  writing  of  the  first  drama  is  not  to  be 
blamed.  It  would  be  unnatural  not  to  try  one's 
hand.  It  is  the  writing  of  the  others  which  is 
amazing  in  men  like  Tennyson  and  Browning. 
They  ought  to  have  felt,  being  wiser  than  other  men 
in  poetry,  that  they  had  no  true  dramatic  capacity. 
Other  poets  who  also  tried  the  drama  did  know 
themselves  better.  Byron  wrote  several  dramas, 
but  he  made  little  effort  to  have  them  represented 
on  the  stage.  He  felt  they  were  not  fit  for  that ; 
and,  moreover,  such  scenic  poems  as  Manfred  and 
Cain  were  not  intended  for  the  stage,  and  do  not 
claim  to  be  dramas  in  that  sense.  To  write  things 
of  this  kind,  making  no  claim  to  public  represen- 
tation, with  the  purpose  of  painting  a  situation  of 
the  soul,  is  a  legitimate  part  of  a  poet's  work,  and 
among  them,  in  Browning's  work,  might  be  classed 
hi  a  Balcony y  which  I  suppose  his  most  devoted 
worshipper  would  scarcely  call  a  drama. 

Walter  Scott,  than  whom  none  could  conduct  a 
conversation  better  in  a  novel,  or  make  more  liv- 
ing the  clash  of  various  minds  in  a  critical  event, 
whether  in  a  cottage  or  a  palace  ;  whom  one  would 
select  as  most  Hkely  to  write  a  drama  well  —  had 
self-knowledge  enough  to  understand,  after  his  early 
attempts,  that  true  dramatic  work  was  beyond  his 
power.  Wordsworth  also  made  one  effort,  and 
then  said  good-bye  to  drama.  Coleridge  tried,  and 
staged  Remorse.  It  failed  and  deserved  to  fail. 
To  read  it  is  to  know  that  the  writer  had  no  sense 
of  an  audience  in  his  mind  as  he  wrote  it  —  a  fatal 
want  in  a  dramatist.  Even  its  purple  patches  of 
fine  poetry  and  its  noble  melody  of  verse  did  not 
redeem  it.     Shelley  did  better  than  these  brethren 


222  BROWNING 

of  his,  and  that  is  curious.  One  would  say,  after 
reading  his  previous  poems,  that  he  was  the  least 
likely  of  men  to  write  a  true  drama.  Yet  the  Ccnci 
approaches  that  goal,  and  the  fragment  of  Charles 
the  First  makes  so  great  a  grip  on  the  noble 
passions  and  on  the  intellectual  eye,  and  its  few 
scenes  are  so  well  woven,  that  it  is  one  of  the  un- 
fulfilled longings  of  literature  that  it  should  have 
been  finished.  Yet  Shelley  himself  gave  it  up.  He 
knew,  like  the  others,  that  the  drama  was  beyond 
his  power. 

Tennyson  and  Browning  did  not  so  easily  recog- 
nise their  limits.  They  went  on  writing  dramas, 
not  for  the  study,  which  would  have  been  natural 
and  legitimate,  but  for  the  stage.  This  is  a  curious 
psychological  problem,  and  there  is  only  one  man 
who  could  have  given  us,  if  he  had  chosen,  a 
poetic  study  of  it,  and  that  is  Browning  himself. 
I  wish,  having  in  his  mature  age  read  Strafford 
over,  and  then  read  his  other  dramas  —  all  of  them 
full  of  the  same  dramatic  weaknesses  as  Straffoj^d 
—  he  had  analysed  himself  as  **  the  poet  who 
would  be  a  dramatist  and  could  not."  Indeed,  it 
is  a  pity  he  did  not  do  this.  He  was  capable  of 
smiling  benignly  at  himself,  and  sketching  himself  as 
if  he  were  another  man  ;  a  thing  of  which  Tennyson, 
who  took  himself  with  awful  seriousness,  and  walked 
with  himself  as  a  Druid  might  have  walked  in  the 
sacred  grove  of  Mona,  was  quite  incapable. 

However,  the  three  important  dramas  of  Tenny- 
son are  better,  as  dramas,  than  Browning's.  That 
is  natural  enough.  For  Browning's  dramas  were 
written  when  he  was  young,  when  his  knowledge 
of    the   dramatic   art   was    small,   and   when   his 


THE  DRAMAS  223 

intellectual  powers  were  not  fully  developed. 
Tennyson  wrote  his  when  his  knowledge  of  the 
drama  was  great,  and  when  his  intellect  had  under- 
gone years  of  careful  training.  He  studied  the 
composition  and  architecture  of  the  best  plays  ;  he 
worked  at  the  stage  situations  ;  he  created  a  blank 
verse  for  his  plays  quite  different  from  that  he 
used  in  his  poems,  and  a  disagreeable  thing  it  is ; 
he  introduced  songs,  like  Shakespeare,  at  happy 
moments ;  he  imitated  the  old  work,  and  at  the 
same  time  strove  hard  to  make  his  own  original. 
He  laboured  at  the  history,  and  Bccket  and  Harold 
are  painfully  historical.  History  should  not  master 
a  play,  but  the  play  the  history.  The  poet  who  is 
betrayed  into  historical  accuracy  so  as  to  injure  the 
development  of  his  conception  in  accordance  with 
imaginative  truth,  is  lost ;  and  Hajvld  and  Becket 
both  suffer  from  Tennyson  falling  into  the  hands  of 
those  critical  historians  whom  Tennyson  consulted. 
Nevertheless,  by  dint  of  laborious  intellectual 
work,  but  not  by  the  imagination,  not  by  dramatic 
genius,  Tennyson  arrived  at  a  relative  success. 
He  did  better  in  these  long  dramas  than  Coleridge, 
Wordsworth,  Scott,  or  Byron.  Queen  Alary,  Harold, 
and  Becket  get  along  in  one's  mind  with  some 
swiftness  when  one  reads  them  in  an  armchair  by 
the  fire.  Some  of  the  characters  are  interesting 
and  wrought  with  painful  skill.  We  cannot  forget 
the  pathetic  image  of  Queen  Mary,  which  dwells 
in  the  mind  when  the  play  has  disappeared  ;  nor 
the  stately  representation  in  Becket  of  the  mighty 
and  overshadowing  power  of  Rome,  claiming  as  its 
own  possession  the  soul  of  the  world.  But  the 
minor   characters ;    the   action ;   the   play   of   the 


224  BROWNING 

characters,  great  and  small,  and  of  the  action  and 
circumstance  together  towards  the  catastrophe  — 
these  things  were  out  of  Tennyson's  reach,  and  still 
more  out  of  Browning's.  They  could  both  build  up 
characters,  and  Browning  better  than  Tennyson  ; 
they  could  both  set  two  people  to  talk  together, 
and  by  their  talk  to  reveal  their  character  to  us ; 
but  to  paint  action,  and  the  action  of  many  men 
and  women  moving  to  a  plotted  end ;  to  paint 
human  life  within  the  limits  of  a  chosen  subject, 
changing  and  tossing  and  unconscious  of  its  fate,  in 
a  town,  on  a  battlefield,  in  the  forum,  in  a  wild 
wood,  in  the  King's  palace  or  a  shepherd  farm  ;  and 
to  image  this  upon  the  stage,  so  that  nothing  done 
or  said  should  be  unmotived,  unrelated  to  the  end, 
or  unnatural ;  of  that  they  were  quite  incapable, 
and  Browning  more  incapable  than  Tennyson. 

There  is  another  thing  to  say.  The  three  long 
dramas  of  Tennyson  are  better  as  dramas  than 
the  long  ones  of  Browning.  But  the  smaller 
dramatic  pieces  of  Browning  are  much  better  than 
the  smaller  ones  of  Tennyson.  The  Promise  of 
May  is  bad  in  dialogue,  bad  in  composition,  bad 
in  delineation  of  character,  worst  of  all  in  its 
subject,  in  its  plot,  and  in  its  motives.  The  Cup, 
and  The  Falcon,  a  beautiful  story  beautifully  written 
by  Boccaccio,  is  strangely  dulled,  even  vulgarised, 
by  Tennyson.  The  Robin  Hood'^X'd.y  has  gracious 
things  in  it,  but  as  a  drama  it  is  worthless,  and 
it  is  impossible  to  forgive  Tennyson  for  his  fairies. 
All  these  small  plays  are  dreadful  examples  of  what 
a  great  poet  may  do  when  he  works  in  a  vehicle 
—  if  I  may  borrow  a  term  from  painting —  for  which 
he  has  no  natural  capacity,  but  for  which  he  thinks 


THE  DRAMAS  225 

he  has.  He  is  then  Hke  those  sailors,  and  meets 
justly  the  same  fate,  who  think  that  because  they 
can  steer  a  boat  admirably,  they  can  also  drive  a 
coach  and  four.  The  love  scene  in  Becket  between 
Rosamund  and  Henry  illustrates  my  meaning.  It 
was  a  subject  in  itself  that  Tennyson  ought  to  have 
done  well,  and  would  probably  have  done  well  in 
another  form  of  poetry ;  but,  done  in  a  form  for 
which  he  had  no  genius,  he  did  it  badly.  It  is 
the  worst  thing  in  the  play.  Once,  however,  he 
did  a  short  drama  fairly  well.  The  Cup  has 
some  dramatic  movement,  its  construction  is  clear, 
its  verse  imaginative,  its  scenery  well  conceived ; 
and  its  motives  are  simple  and  easily  understood. 
But  then,  as  in  Becket^  Irving  stood  at  his  right 
hand,  and  advised  him  concerning  dramatic  changes 
and  situations.  Its  passion  is,  however,  cold ;  it 
leaves  us  unimpressed. 

On  the  contrary.  Browning's  smaller  dramatic 
pieces  —  I  cannot  call  them  dramas  —  are  much 
better  than  those  of  Tennyson.  Pippa  Passes^ 
A  SoiiPs  Tragedy,  In  a  Balcony,  stand  on  a  much 
higher  level,  aim  higher,  and  reach  their  aim  more 
fully  than  Tennyson's  shorter  efforts.  They  have 
not  the  qualities  which  fit  them  for  representation, 
but  they  have  those  which  fit  them  for  thoughtful 
and  quiet  reading.  No  one  thinks  much  of  the 
separate  personalities ;  our  chief  interest  is  in  fol- 
lowing Browning's  imagination  as  it  invents  new 
phases  of  his  subject,  and  plays  like  a  sword 
in  sunlight,  in  and  out  of  these  phases.  As 
poems  of  the  soul  in  severe  straits,  made  under  a 
quasi-dramatic  form,  they  reach  a  high  excellence, 
but  all  that  we  like  best  in  them,  when  we  follow 

Q 


226  BROWNING 

them  as  situations  of   the  soul,   we  should  most 
dislike  when  represented  on  the  stage. 

Strafford  is,  naturally,  the  most  immature  of  the 
dramas,  written  while  he  was  still  writing  Para- 
celsus, and  when  he  was  very  young.  It  is  strange 
to  compare  the  greater  part  of  its  prosaic  verse  with 
the  rich  poetic  verse  of  Paracelsics  ;  and  this  further 
illustrates  how  much  a  poet  suffers  when  he  writes 
in  a  form  which  is  not  in  his  genius.  There  are 
only  a  very  few  passages  in  Strafford  which  re- 
semble poetry  until  we  come  to  the  fifth  act,  where 
Browning  passes  from  the  jerky,  allusive  but 
rhythmical  prose  of  the  previous  acts  into  that 
talk  between  Strafford  and  his  children  which  has 
poetic  charm,  clearness,  and  grace.  The  change 
does  not  last  long,  and  when  Hollis,  Charles,  and 
Lady  Carlisle,  followed  by  Pym,  come  in,  the  whole 
act  is  in  confusion.  Nothing  is  clear,  except  ab- 
sence of  the  clearness  required  for  a  drama.  But 
the  previous  acts  are  even  more  obscure ;  not 
indeed  for  their  readers,  but  for  hearers  in  a 
theatre  who  —  since  they  are  hurried  on  at  once  to 
new  matter  —  are  forced  to  take  in  on  the  instant 
what  the  dramatist  means.  It  would  be  impossi- 
ble to  tell  at  first  hearing  what  the  chopped-up 
sentences,  the  interrupted  phrases,  the  interjected 
'*nots"  and  "  buts  "  and  "yets"  are  intended  to 
convey.  The  conversation  is  mangled.  This  vice 
does  not  prevail  in  the  other  dramas  to  the  same 
extent  as  in  Strafford.  Browning  had  learnt  his 
lesson,  I  suppose,  when  he  saw  Strafford  rep- 
resented. But  it  sorely  prevails  in  Colombes 
Birthday. 


THE  DRAMAS  227 

Strafford  is  brought  before  us  as  a  politician,  as 
the  leader  of  the  King's  side  in  an  austere  crisis  of 
England's  history.  The  first  scene  puts  the  great 
quarrel  forward  as  the  ground  on  which  the  drama 
is  to  be  wrought.  An  attempt  is  made  to  repre- 
sent the  various  elements  of  the  popular  storm  in 
the  characters  of  Pym,  Hampden,  the  younger 
Vane,  and  others,  and  especially  in  the  relations 
between  Pym  and  Strafford,  who  are  set  over,  one 
against  the  other,  with  some  literary  power.  But  the 
lines  on  which  the  action  is  wrought  are  not  simple. 
No  audience  could  follow  the  elaborate  network  of 
intrigue  which,  in  Browning's  effort  to  represent 
too  much  of  the  history,  he  has  made  so  confused. 
Strong  characterisation  perishes  in  this  effort  to 
write  a  history  rather  than  a  drama.  What  we 
chiefly  see  of  the  crisis  is  a  series  of  political  in- 
trigues at  the  Court  carried  out  by  base  persons, 
of  whom  the  Queen  is  the  basest,  to  ruin  Strafford  ; 
the  futility  of  Strafford's  sentimental  love  of  the 
King,  whom  he  despises  while  he  loves  him  ;  Straf- 
ford's blustering  weakness  and  blindness  when 
he  forces  his  way  into  the  Parliament  House,  and 
the  contemptible  meanness  of  Charles.  The  low 
intrigues  of  the  Court  leave  the  strongest  impres- 
sion on  the  mind,  not  the  mighty  struggle,  not  the 
fate  of  the  Monarchy  and  its  dark  supporter. 

Browning  tries  —  as  if  he  had  forgotten  that 
which  should  have  been  first  in  his  mind  —  to  hft 
the  main  struggle  into  importance  in  the  last  act, 
but  he  fails.  That  which  ought  to  be  tragic  is 
merely  sentimental.  Indeed,  sentimentality  is  the 
curse  of  the  play.  Strafford's  love  of  the  King  is 
almost  maudlin.    The  scenes  between  Strafford  and 


228  BROWNING 

Pym  in  which  their  ancient  friendship  is  introduced 
are  over-sentimentaUsed,  not  only  for  their  charac- 
ters, but  for  the  great  destinies  at  stake.  Even  at 
the  last,  when  Pym  and  Strafford  forgive  each  other 
and  speak  of  meeting  hereafter,  good  sense  is  vio- 
lated, and  the  natural  dignity  of  the  scene,  and  the 
characters  of  the  men.  Strafford  is  weaker  here, 
if  that  were  possible,  than  he  is  in  the  rest  of  the 
drama.     Nothing  can  be  more  unlike  the  man. 

Pym  is  intended  to  be  especially  strong.  He  is 
made  a  blusterer.  He  was  a  gentleman,  but  in 
this  last  scene  he  is  hateful.  As  to  Charles,  he 
was  always  a  selfish  liar,  but  he  was  not  a  coward, 
and  a  coward  he  becomes  in  this  play.  He,  too,  is 
sentimentalised  by  his  uxoriousness.  Lady  Car- 
lisle is  invented.  I  wish  she  had  not  been.  Straf- 
ford's misfortunes  were  deep  enough  without  having 
her  in  love  with  him.  I  do  not  believe,  moreover, 
that  any  woman  in  the  whole  world  from  the  very 
beginning  was  ever  so  obscure  in  her  speech  to 
the  man  she  loves  as  Lady  Carhsle  was  to  Straf- 
ford. And  the  motive  of  her  obscurity  —  that  if 
she  discloses  the  King's  perfidy  she  robs  Strafford 
of  that  which  is  dearest  to  him  —  his  belief  in  the 
King's  affection  for  him  —  is  no  doubt  very  fine, 
but  the  woman  was  either  not  in  love  who  argued 
in  that  way,  or  a  fool ;  for  Strafford  knew,  and  lets 
her  understand  that  he  knew,  the  treachery  of  the 
King.  But  Browning  meant  her  to  be  in  love,  and 
to  be  clever. 

The  next  play  Browning  wrote,  undeterred  by 
the  fate  of  Strafford,  was  King  Victor  and  King 
Charles.    The  subject  is  historical,  but  it  is  modified 


THE  DRAMAS  229 

by  Browning,  quite  legitimately,  to  suit  his  own 
purposes.  In  itself  the  plot  is  uninteresting.  King 
Victor,  having  brought  the  kingdom  to  the  verge 
of  ruin,  abdicates  and  hands  the  crown  to  his  son, 
believing  him  to  be  a  weak-minded  person  whose 
mistakes  will  bring  him  —  Victor  —  back  to  the 
throne,  when  he  can  throw  upon  the  young  King 
the  responsibility  of  the  mess  he  has  himself  made 
of  the  kingdom.  Charles  turns  out  to  be  a  strong 
character,  sets  right  the  foreign  affairs  of  the 
kingdom,  and  repairs  his  father's  misgovernment. 
Then  Victor,  envious  and  longing  for  power,  con- 
spires to  resume  the  throne,  and  taken  prisoner, 
begs  back  the  crown.  Charles,  touched  as  a  son, 
and  against  his  better  judgment,  restores  his  father, 
who  immediately  and  conveniently  dies.  It  is  a 
play  of  Court  intrigue  and  of  politics,  and  these  are 
not  made  interesting  by  any  action,  such  as  we  call 
dramatic,  in  the  play.  From  end  to  end  there  is 
no  inter-movement  of  public  passion.  There  are 
only  four  characters.  D'Ormea,  the  minister,  is  a 
mere  stick  in  a  prime-minister's  robes  and  serves 
Victor  and  Charles  with  equal  ease,  in  order  to 
keep  his  place.  He  is  not  even  subtle  in  his  role. 
When  we  think  what  Browning  would  have  made 
of  him  in  a  single  poem,  and  contrast  it  with  what 
he  has  made  of  him  here,  we  are  again  impressed 
with  Browning's  strange  loss  of  power  when  he 
is  writing  drama.  Victor  and  Charles  are  better 
drawn  than  any  characters  in  Strajford;  and 
Polyxena  is  a  great  advance  on  Lady  Carlisle. 
But  this  piece  is  not  a  drama ;  it  is  a  study  of  soul- 
situations,  and  none  of  them  are  of  any  vital  im- 
portance.    There  is  far  too  great  an  improbability 


230  BROWNING 

in  the  conception  of  Charles.  A  weak  man  in 
private  becomes  a  strong  man  in  public  life.  To 
represent  him,  having  known  and  felt  his  strength, 
as  relapsing  into  his  previous  weakness  when  it 
endangers  all  his  work,  is  quite  too  foolish.  He 
did  not  do  it  in  history.  Browning,  with  astonish- 
ing want  of  insight,  makes  him  do  it  here,  and 
adds  to  it  a  foolish  anger  with  his  wife  because 
she  advises  him  against  it.  And  the  reason  he 
does  it  and  is  angry  with  his  wife,  is  a  merely 
sentimental  one  —  a  private,  unreasoning,  childish 
love  of  his  father,  such  a  love  as  Strafford  is 
supposed  to  have  for  Charles  I.  —  the  kind  of  love 
which  intruded  into  public  affairs  ruins  them,  and 
which,  being  feeble  and  for  an  unworthy  object, 
injures  him  who  gives  it  and  him  who  receives  it. 
Even  as  a  study  of  characters,  much  more  as  a 
drama,  this  piece  is  a  failure,  and  the  absence  of 
poetry  in  it  is  amazing. 

The  Return  of  the  Druses  approaches  more 
nearly  to  a  true  drama  than  its  predecessors ;  it 
is  far  better  written ;  it  has  several  fine  motives 
which  are  intelligently,  but  not  dramatically,  worked 
out ;  and  it  is  with  great  joy  that  one  emerges  at 
last  into  a  little  poetry.  Browning,  having  more  or 
less  invented  his  subject,  is  not  seduced,  by  the 
desire  to  be  historical,  to  follow  apparent  instead 
of  imaginative  truth ;  nor  are  we  wearied  by  his 
unhappy  efforts  to  analyse,  in  disconnected  con- 
versations, political  intrigue.  Things  are  in  this 
play  as  the  logic  of  imaginative  passion  wills,  as 
Browning's  conception  drove  him.  But,  unfortu- 
nately for  its  success  as  a  true  drama,  Browning 


THE  DRAMAS  231 

doubles  and  redoubles  the  motives  which  impel  his 
characters.  Djabal,  Anael,  Loys,  have  each  of 
them  two  different  and  sometimes  opposite  aims 
working  in  them.  They  are  driven  now  by  one, 
now  by  the  other,  and  the  changes  of  speech  and 
action  made  by  the  different  motives  surging  up, 
alternately  or  together,  within  their  will,  are  so 
swift  and  baffling  that  an  audience  would  be  utterly 
bewildered.  It  is  amusing  to  follow  the  prestidigita- 
tion of  Browning's  intellect  creating  this  confused 
battle  in  souls  as  long  as  one  reads  the  play  at 
home,  though  even  then  we  wonder  why  he  cannot, 
at  least  in  a  drama,  make  a  simple  situation.  If 
he  loved  difficult  work,  this  would  be  much  more 
difficult  to  do  well  than  the  confused  situation  he 
has  not  done  well.  Moreover,  the  simplified  situa- 
tion would  be  effective  on  the  stage ;  and  it  would 
give  a  great  opportunity  for  fine  poetry.  As  it  is, 
imaginative  work  is  replaced  by  intellectual  exer- 
cises, poetry  is  lost  in  his  analysis  of  complex  states 
of  feeling.  However,  this  involved  in-and-out  of 
thought  is  entertaining  to  follow  in  one's  study,  if 
not  on  the  stage.  It  is  done  with  a  loose  power 
no  one  else  in  England  possessed,  and  our  only 
regret  is  that  he  did  not  bridle  and  master  his 
power.  Finally,  with  regard  to  this  play,  I  should 
like  to  isolate  from  it  certain  imaginative  represen- 
tations of  characters  which  embody  types  of  the  men 
of  the  time,  such  as  the  Prefect  and  the  Nuncio. 
The  last  interview  between  Loys  and  the  Prefect, 
taken  out  of  the  drama,  would  be  a  little  master- 
piece of  characterisation. 

The  Blot  m  the  'Scutcheon  is  the  finest  of  all  these 


232  BROWNING 

dramas.  It  might  well  be  represented  on  the  stage 
as  a  literary  drama  before  those  who  had  already 
read  it,  and  who  would  listen  to  it  for  its  passion  and 
poetry ;  but  its  ill-construction  and  the  unnatural- 
ness  of  its  situations  will  always  prevent,  and  justly, 
its  public  success  as  a  drama.  It  is  full  of  pathetic 
and  noble  poetry ;  its  main  characters  are  clearly 
outhned  and  of  a  refreshing  simplicity.  It  has  few 
obtrusive  metaphysical  or  intellectual  subtleties  — 
things  which  Browning  could  not  keep  out  of  his 
dramas,  but  which  only  a  genius  like  Shakespeare 
can  handle  on  the  stage.  It  has  real  intensity  of 
feeling,  and  the  various  passions  interlock  and  clash 
together  with  some  true  dramatic  interaction.  Their 
presentation  awakens  our  pity,  and  wonder  for  the 
blind  fates  of  men.  The  close  leaves  us  in  sorrow, 
yet  in  love  with  human  nature.  The  pathos  of  the 
catastrophe  is  the  most  pathetic  thing  in  Browning. 
I  do  not  even  except  the  lovely  record  of  PompiHa. 
The  torture  of  the  human  heart,  different  but 
equal,  of  Tresham  and  Mildred  in  the  last  scene,  is 
exceedingly  bitter  in  its  cry  —  too  cruel  almost  to 
hear  and  know,  were  it  not  relieved  by  the  beauty 
of  their  tenderness  and  forgiveness  in  the  hour  of 
death.  They  die  of  their  pain,  but  die  loving,  and 
are  glad  to  die.  They  have  all  of  them  —  Mildred, 
Tresham,  and  Mertoun  —  sinned  as  it  were  by  error. 
Death  unites  them  in  righteousness,  loveliness,  and 
love.  A  fierce,  swift  storm  sweeps  out  of  a  clear 
heaven  upon  them,  destroys  them,  and  saves  them. 
It  is  all  over  in  three  days.  They  are  fortunate ; 
their  love  deserved  that  the  ruin  should  be  brief, 
and  the  reparation  be  transferred,  in  a  moment,  to 
the  grave  justice  of  eternity. 


THE  DRAMAS  233 

The  first  two  acts  bear  no  comparison  with 
the  third.  The  first  scene,  with  all  the  servants, 
only  shows  how  Browning  failed  in  bringing  a 
number  of  characters  together,  and  in  making  them 
talk  with  ease  and  connectedly.  Then,  in  two 
acts,  the  plot  unfolds  itself.  It  is  a  marvel  of  bad 
construction,  grossly  improbable,  and  offends  that 
popular  common  sense  of  what  is  justly  due  to  the 
characters  concerned  and  to  human  nature  itself, 
to  which  a  dramatist  is  bound  to  appeal. 

Mildred  and  Mertoun  have  loved  and  sinned. 
Mertoun  visits  her  every  night.  Gerard,  an  old 
gamekeeper,  has  watched  him  climbing  to  her 
window,  and  he  resolves  to  tell  this  fatal  tale  to 
Tresham,  Mildred's  brother,  whose  strongest  feel- 
ing is  pride  in  the  unblemished  honour  of  his  house. 
Meantime  Mertoun  has  asked  Tresham  for  Mil- 
dred's hand  in  marriage,  and  these  lovers,  receiv- 
ing his  consent,  hope  that  their  sin  will  be  purged. 
Then  Gerard  tells  his  story.  Tresham  summons 
Mildred.  She  confesses  the  lover,  and  Tresham 
demands  his  name.  To  reveal  the  name  would  have 
saved  the  situation,  as  we  guess  from  Tresham's 
character.  His  love  would  have  had  time  to  con- 
quer his  pride.  But  Mildred  will  not  tell  the  name, 
and  when  Tresham  says  :  ''  Then  what  am  I  to  say 
to  Mertoun.?"  she  answers,  ''I  will  marry  him." 
This,  and  no  wonder,  seems  the  last  and  crowning 
dishonour  to  Tresham,  and  he  curses,  as  if  she  were 
a  harlot,  the  sister  whom  he  passionately  loves. 

This  is  a  horrible  situation  which  Browning  had 
no  right  to  make.  The  natural  thing  would  be  for 
Mildred  to  disclose  that  her  lover  and  Lord  Mertoun, 
whom  she  was  to  marry,  were  one  and  the  same. 


234  BROWNING 

There  is  no  adequate  reason,  considering  the  des- 
perate gravity  of  the  situation,  for  her  silence ; 
it  ought  to  be  accounted  for  and  it  is  not,  nor  could 
it  be.  Her  refusal  to  tell  her  lover's  name,  her 
confession  of  her  dishonour  and  at  the  same  time 
her  acceptance  of  Mertoun  as  a  husband  at  her 
brother's  hands,  are  circumstances  which  shock 
probabiHty  and  common  human  nature. 

Then  it  is  not  only  this  which  irritates  a  reader; 
it  is  also  the  stupidity  of  Tresham.  That  also  is 
most  unnatural.  He  believes  that  the  girl  whom 
he  has  loved  and  honoured  all  his  life,  whose  purity 
was  as  a  star  to  him,  will  accept  Mertoun  while 
she  was  sinning  with  another !  He  should  have 
felt  that  this  was  incredible,  and  immediately  under- 
stood, as  Guendolen  does,  that  her  lover  and  Mer- 
toun were  the  same.  Dulness  and  blindness  so 
improbable  are  unfitting  in  a  drama,  nor  does 
the  passion  of  his  overwhelming  pride  excuse  him. 
The  central  situation  is  a  protracted  irritation. 
Browning  was  never  a  good  hand  at  construction, 
even  in  his  poems.  His  construction  is  at  its  very 
worst  in  this  drama. 

But  now,  when  we  have,  with  wrath,  accepted 
this  revolting  situation  —  which,  of  course.  Brown- 
ing made  in  order  to  have  his  tragic  close,  but 
which  a  good  dramatist  would  have  arranged  so 
differently  —  we  pass  into  the  third  act,  the  tragic 
close ;  and  that  is  simple  enough  in  its  lines,  quite 
naturally  wrought  out,  beautifully  felt,  and  of 
exquisite  tenderness.  Rashness  of  wrath  and 
pride  begin  it;  Mertoun  is  slain  by  Tresham  as 
he  cHmbs  to  Mildred's  window,  though  why  he 
should   risk   her   honour   any  more  when    she   is 


THE  DRAMAS  235 

affianced  to  him  is  another  of  Browning's  madden- 
ing improbabiUties.  And  then  wrath  and  pride 
pass  away,  and  sorrow  and  love  and  the  joy  of 
death  are  woven  together  in  beauty.  If  we  must 
go  through  the  previous  acts  to  get  to  this,  we 
forgive,  for  its  sake,  their  wrongness.  It  has 
turns  of  love  made  exquisitely  fair  by  inevitable 
death,  unfathomable  depths  of  feeling.  We  touch 
in  these  last  scenes  the  sacred  love  beyond  the 
world  in  which  forgiveness  is  forgotten. 

Colombe's  Birthday  is  of  all  these  plays  the  near- 
est to  a  true  drama.     It  has  been  represented  in 
America  as  well  as  in  England,  and  its  skilful  char- 
acterisation of  Valence,  Colombe,  and  Berthold  has 
won  deserved  praise;    but  it  could  not  hold  the 
stage.     The  subject  is  too  thin.     Colombe  finds  out 
on  her  birthday  that  she  is  not  the  rightful  heir  to 
the  Duchy;   but  as  there  is  some  doubt,  she  re- 
solves to  fight  the  question.    In  her  perplexities  she 
is  helped  and  supported  by  Valence,  an  advocate 
from  one  of  the  cities  of  the  Duchy,  who  loves  her, 
but  whom  she  believes  to  serve  her  from  loyalty 
alone.     Berthold,  the  true  heir,  to  avoid  a  quarrel, 
offers  to  marry  Colombe,  not  because  he  loves  her, 
but  as  a  good  piece  of  policy.     She  then  finds  out 
that  she  loves  Valence,  and  refusing  the  splendid  al- 
liance, leaves  the  Court  a  private  person,  with  love 
and  her  lover.    This  sUght  thing  is  spun  out  into  five 
acts  by  Browning's  metaphysics  of  love  and  friend- 
ship.     There  is  but  little  action,  or  pressure  of 
the  characters  into  one  another.     The  intriguing 
courtiers    are    dull,    and    their    talk    is    not    knit 
together.     The  only  thing  alive  in  them  is  their 


236  BROIVN/IVG 

universal  meanness.  That  meanness,  it  is  true, 
enhances  the  magnanimity  of  Valence  and  Ber- 
thold,  but  its  dead  level  in  so  many  commonplace 
persons  lowers  the  dramatic  interest  of  the  piece. 
The  play  is  rather  an  interesting  conversational 
poem  about  the  up-growing  of  love  between  two 
persons  of  different  but  equally  noble  character ; 
who  think  love  is  of  more  worth  than  power  or 
wealth,  and  who  are  finally  brought  together  by 
a  bold,  rough  warrior  who  despises  love  in  com- 
parison with  policy.  Its  real  action  takes  place 
in  the  hearts  of  Valence  and  Colombe,  not  in  the 
world  of  human  life ;  and  what  takes  place  in  their 
hearts  is  at  times  so  quaintly  metaphysical,  so 
curiously  apart  from  the  simplicities  of  human 
love,  so  complicated,  even  beyond  the  complexity 
of  the  situation  —  for  Browning  loved  to  pile  com- 
plexity on  complexity  —  that  it  makes  the  play  unfit 
for  public  representation  but  all  the  more  interest- 
ing for  private  reading.  But,  even  in  the  quiet  of 
our  room,  we  ask  why  Browning  put  his  subject 
into  a  form  which  did  not  fit  it;  why  he  overloaded 
the  story  of  two  souls  with  a  host  of  characters  who 
have  no  vital  relation  to  it,  and,  having  none,  are 
extremely  wearisome }  It  might  have  been  far 
more  successfully  done  in  the  form  of  l7t  a  Balcojiy^ 
which  Browning  himself  does  not  class  as  a  drama. 

Luria,  the  last  of  the  dramas  in  date  of  composi- 
tion, may  be  said  to  have  no  outward  action,  except 
in  one  scene  where  Tiburzio  breaks  in  suddenly  to 
defend  Luria,  who,  like  a  wounded  stag,  stands  at 
bay  among  the  dogs  and  hunters  who  "suspect  his 
fidelity  to  Florence.    It  is  a  drama  of  inward  action, 


THE  DRAMAS  237 

of  changes  in  the  souls  of  men.  The  full  purifica- 
tion of  Luria  is  its  one  aim,  and  the  motive  of 
Luria  himself  is  a  single  motive.  The  play  occu- 
pies one  day  only,  and  passes  in  one  place. 

Luria  is  a  noble  Moor  who  commands  the  armies 
of  Florence  against  Pisa,  and  conquers  Pisa.  He 
is  in  love  with  the  city  of  Florence  as  a  man  is 
with  a  woman.  Its  beauty,  history,  great  men,  and 
noble  buildings  attract  his  Eastern  nature,  by  their 
Northern  qualities,  as  much  as  they  repel  his 
friend  and  countryman  Husain.  He  lives  for  her 
with  unbroken  faithfulness,  and  he  dies  for  her 
with  piteous  tenderness  when  he  finds  out  that 
Florence  distrusts  him.  When  he  is  suspected  of 
treachery,  his  heart  breaks,  and  to  explain  his 
broken  heart,  he  dies.  There  is  no  other  way  left 
to  show  to  Florence  that  he  has  always  been  true 
to  her.  And  at  the  moment  of  his  death,  all  who 
spied  on  him,  distrusted  and  condemned  him,  are 
convinced  of  his  fidelity.  Even  before  he  dies,  his 
devotion  to  his  ideal  aim,  his  absolute  unselfishness, 
have  won  over  and  ennobled  all  the  self-interested 
characters  which  surround  him  - —  Puccio,  the  gen- 
eral who  is  jealous  of  him;  Domizia,  the  woman 
who  desires  to  use  him  as  an  instrument  of  her 
hate  to  Florence ;  even  Braccio,  the  Machiavellian 
Florentine  who  thinks  his  success  must  be  danger- 
ous to  the  state.  Luria  conquers  them  all.  It  is 
the  triumph  of  self-forgetfulness.  And  the  real 
aim  of  the  play  is  not  dramatic.  It  is  too  isolated 
an  aim  to  be  dramatic.  It  is  to  build  up  and  image 
the  noble  character  of  Luria,  and  it  reaches  that 
end  with  dignity. 

The  other  characters  are  but  foils  to  enhance  the 


238  BROWNING 

solitary  greatness  of  Luria.  Braccio  is  a  mere 
voice,  a  theory  who  talks,  and  at  the  end  where 
he  becomes  more  human,  he  seems  to  lose  his  in- 
telligence. The  Secretaries  have  no  individuality. 
Domizia  causes  nothing,  and  might  with  advantage 
be  out  of  the  play.  However,  when,  moved  by 
the  nobleness  of  Luria,  she  gives  up  her  revenge 
on  Florence,  she  speaks  well,  and  her  outburst  is 
poetical.  Puccio  is  a  real  personage,  but  a  poor 
fellow.  Tiburzio  is  a  pale  reflection  of  Luria. 
Husain  alone  has  some  personality,  but  even  his 
Easternness,  which  isolates  him,  is  merged  in  his 
love  of  Luria.  All  of  them  only  exist  to  be  the 
scaffolding  by  means  of  which  Luria's  character  is 
built  into  magnificence,  and  they  disappear  from 
our  sight,  like  scaffolding,  when  the  building  is 
finished. 

There  are  fine  things  in  the  poem :  the  image  of 
Florence ;  its  men,  its  streets,  its  life  as  seen  by 
the  stranger-eyes  of  Luria ;  the  contrast  between 
the  Eastern  and  the  Latin  nature ;  the  picture  of 
hot  war ;  the  sudden  friendship  of  Luria  and 
Tiburzio,  the  recognition  in  a  moment  of  two  high 
hearts  by  one  another ;  the  picture  of  Tiburzio 
fighting  at  the  ford,  of  Luria  tearing  the  letter 
among  the  shamed  conspirators ;  the  drawing  of  the 
rough  honest  soldier-nature  in  Puccio,  and,  chief  of 
all,  the  vivid  historic  painting  of  the  time  and  the 
type  of  ItaUan  character  at  the  time  of  the  repubUcs. 

The  first  part  of  A  SouVs  Tragedy  is  written  in 
poetry  and  the  second  in  prose.  The  first  part  is 
dull  but  the  second  is  very  lively  and  amusing ; 
so  gay  and  clever  that  we  begin  to  wish  that  a 


THE  DRAMAS  239 

good  deal  of  Browning's  dramas  had  been  written 
in  prose.  And  the  prose  itself,  unhke  his  more 
serious  prose  in  his  letters  and  essays,  is  good, 
clear,  and  of  an  excellent  style.  The  time  of  the 
play  is  in  the  sixteenth  century ;  but  there  is 
nothing  in  it  which  is  special  to  that  time :  no 
scenery,  no  vivid  pictures  of  street  life,  no  distinct 
atmosphere  of  the  period.  It  might  just  as  well 
be  of  the  eighteenth  or  nineteenth  century.  The 
character  of  Chiappino  may  be  found  in  any  pro- 
vincial town.  This  compound  of  envy,  self-conceit, 
superficial  cleverness,  and  real  silliness  is  one  of 
our  universal  plagues,  and  not  uncommon  among 
the  demagogues  of  any  country.  And  he  contrasts 
him  with  Ogniben,  the  Pope's  legate,  another  type, 
well  known  in  governments,  skilled  in  affairs,  half 
mocking,  half  tolerant  of  the  "foolish  people," 
the  alluring  destroyer  of  all  self-seeking  leaders  of 
the  people.  He  also  is  as  common  as  Chiappino, 
as  modern  as  he  is  ancient.  Both  are  representa- 
tive types,  and  admirably  drawn.  They  are  done 
at  too  great  length,  but  Browning  could  not  man- 
age them  as  well  in  drama  as  he  would  have  done 
in  a  short  piece  such  as  he  placed  in  Men  and 
Women.  Why  this  little  thing  is  called  A  SoiiVs 
Tragedy  I  cannot  quite  understand.  That  title  sup- 
poses that  Chiappino  loses  his  soul  at  the  end  of  the 
play.  But  it  is  plain  from  his  mean  and  envious 
talk  at  the  beginning  with  Eulalia  that  his  soul  is 
already  lost.  He  is  not  worse  at  the  end,  but  per- 
haps on  the  way  to  betterment.  The  tragedy  is 
then  in  the  discovery  by  the  people  that  he  who  was 
thought  to  be  a  great  soul  is  a  fraud.  But  that  con- 
clusion was  not  Browning's  intention.     Finally,  if 


240  BROWNING 

this  be  a  tragedy  it  is  clothed  with  comedy.  Brown- 
ing's humour  was  never  more  wise,  kindly,  worldly, 
and  biting  than  in  the  second  act,  and  Ogniben 
may  well  be  set  beside  Bishop  Blougram.  It  would 
be  a  privilege  to  dine  with  either  of  them. 

Every  one  is  in  love  with  Pippa  Passes,  which 
appeared  immediately  after  Sordello.  It  may  have 
been  a  refreshment  to  Browning  after  the  com- 
plexities and  metaphysics  of  Sordello,  to  live  for  a 
time  with  the  soft  simpHcity  of  Pippa,  with  the 
clear  motives  of  the  separate  occurrences  at  Asolo, 
with  the  outside  picturesque  world,  and  in  a  lyric 
atmosphere.  It  certainly  is  a  refreshment  to  us. 
It  is  a  pity  so  little  was  done  by  Browning  in  this 
pleasant,  graceful,  happy  way.  The  substance  of 
thought  in  it  and  its  intellectual  force  are  just  as 
strong  as  in  Sordello  or  Paj^acelsics,  and  are  con- 
cerned, especially  in  the  first  two  pieces,  with 
serious  and  weighty  matters  of  human  life.  Be- 
yond the  pleasure  the  poem  gives,  its  indirect 
teaching  is  full  of  truth  and  beauty ;  and  the 
things  treated  of  belong  to  many  phases  of  human 
life,  and  touch  their  problems  with  poetic  light  and 
love.  Pippa  herself,  in  her  affectionate,  natural 
goodness,  illuminates  the  greater  difficulties  of  life 
in  a  single  day  more  than  Sordello  or  Paracelsus 
could  in  the  whole  course  of  their  lives. 

It  may  be  that  there  are  persons  who  think  lightly 
of  Pippa  Passes  in  comparison  with  Fifate  at  the 
Fair,  persons  who  judge  poetry  by  the  difficulties 
they  find  in  its  perusal.  But  Pippa  Passes  fulfils 
the  demands  of  the  art  of  poetry,  and  produces  in 
the  world  the  high  results  of  lovely  and  noble 
poetry.     The  other  only  does  these  things  in  part; 


THE  DRAMAS  241 

and  when  Fijine  at  the  Fair  and  even  Sordello  are 
in  the  future  only  the  study  of  pedants,  Pippa 
Passes  will  be  an  enduring  strength  and  pleasure 
to  all  who  love  tenderly  and  think  widely.  And 
those  portions  of  it  which  belong  to  Pippa  herself, 
the  most  natural,  easy,  and  simplest  portions,  will 
be  the  sources  of  the  greatest  pleasure  and  the 
deepest  thought.  Like  Sordello's  song,  they  will 
endure  for  the  healing,  comforting,  exalting,  and 
impelling  of  the  world. 

I  have  written  of  her  and  of  other  parts  of  the 
poem  elsewhere.  It  only  remains  to  say  that 
nowhere  is  the  lyric  element  in  Browning's  genius 
more  delightfully  represented  than  in  this  httle 
piece  of  mingled  song  and  action.  There  is  no 
better  love-lyric  in  his  work  than 

You'll  love  me  yet  !  —  and  I  can  tarry 
Your  lover's  protracted  growing  ; 

and  the  two  snatches  of  song  which  Pippa  sings 
when  she  is  passing  under  Ottima's  window  and 
the  Monsignore's  —  "  The  year's  at  the  spring  "  and 
"  Overhead  the  tree-tops  meet  "  —  possess,  inde- 
pendent of  the  meaning  of  the  words  and  their 
poetic  charm,  a  freshness,  dewiness,  morning 
ravishment  to  which  it  is  difficult  to  find  an  equal. 
They  are  filled  with  youth  and  its  delight,  alike  of  the 
body  and  the  soul.  What  Browning's  spirit  felt 
and  lived  when  he  was  young  and  his  heart  beating 
with  the  life  of  the  universe,  is  in  them,  and  it  is 
their  greatest  charm. 


CHAPTER  IX 

POEMS    OF  THE  PASSION  OF  LOVE 

WHEN  we  leave  Paracelsus,  Sordello,  and  the 
Dramas  behind,  and  find  ourselves  among 
the  host  of  occasional  poems  contained  in  the 
Dramatic  Lyrics  and  Romances,  in  Meji  and  Women, 
in  Dra7natis  Personce,  and  in  the  later  volumes,  it  is 
like  leaving  an  unencumbered  sea  for  one  studded 
with  a  thousand  islands.  Every  island  is  worth  a 
visit  and  different  from  the  rest.  Their  variety, 
their  distinct  scenery,  their  diverse  inhabitants,  the 
strange  surprises  in  them,  are  as  continual  an 
enchantment  for  the  poetic  voyager  as  the  summer 
isles  of  the  Pacific.  But  while  each  of  them  is 
different  from  the  rest,  yet,  like  the  islands  in  the 
Pacific,  they  fall  into  groups ;  and  to  isolate  these 
groups  is  perhaps  the  best  way  to  treat  so  varied 
a  collection  of  poems.  To  treat  them  chrono- 
logically would  be  a  task  too  long  and  wearisome 
for  a  book.  To  treat  them  zoologically,  if  I  may 
borrow  that  term,  is  possible,  and  may  be  profit- 
able. This  chapter  is  dedicated  to  the  poems 
which  relate  to  Love. 

Commonly  speaking,  the  term  Love  Poems  does 
not  mean  poems  concerning  the  absolute  Love,  or  the 
love  of  Ideas,  such  as  Truth  or  Beauty,  or  Love  of 

242 


POEMS  OF  THE  PASSION  OF  LOVE       243 

mankind  or  one's  own  country,  or  the  loves  that 
belong   to    home,  or  the  love  of  friends,  or  even 
married  love  unless  it  be  specially  bound  up,  as  it 
is  in  Browning's  poem  of  By  the  Fireside,  with  ante- 
nuptial love  —  but  poems  expressing  the  isolating 
passion  of  one  sex  for  the  other ;  chiefly  in  youth, 
or  in  conditions  which  resemble  those  of   youth, 
whether  moral  or  immoral.     These  celebrate  the 
joys  and  sorrows,  rapture  and  despair,  changes  and 
chances,  moods,  fancies,  and   imaginations,  quips 
and  cranks  and  wanton  wiles,  all  the  tragedy  and 
comedy,  of  that  passion,  which  is  half  of  the  sense 
and   half  of   the  spirit,  sometimes  wholly  of   the 
senses   and    sometimes   wholly   of   the   spirit.     It 
began,  in  one  form  of  it,  among  the  lower  animals 
and  still  rules  their  lives  ;  it  has  developed  through 
many  thousand  years  of  humanity  into  myriads  of 
shapes   in  and    outside  of   the  soul ;    into   stories 
whose  varieties  and  multitudes  are  more  numerous 
than  the  stars  of  heaven  or  the  sand  of  the  sea- 
shore ;  and  yet  whose  multitudinous  changes  and 
histories  have  their  source  in  two  things  only  —  in 
the  desire  to  generate,  which  is  physical;  in  the 
desire  to  forget  self  in  another,  which  is  spiritual. 
The  union  of  both  these  desires  into  one  passion  of 
thought,  act,  and  feeling  is  the  fine  quintessence  of 
this  kind  of  love ;  but  the  latter  desire  alone  is  the 
primal  motive  of  all  the  other  forms  of  love,  from 
friendship  and  maternal  love  to  love  of  country,  of 
mankind,  of  ideas,  and  of  God. 

With  regard  to  love  poems  of  the  sort  we  now 
discuss,  the  times  in  history  when  they  are  most 
written  are  those  in  which  a  nation  or  mankind 
renews  its  youth.     Their  production  in  the  days  of 


244  BROWNING 

Elizabeth  was  enormous,  their  passion  various  and 
profound,  their  fancy  elaborate,  their  ornament  ex- 
travagant with  the  extravagance  of  youth ;  and,  in 
the  hands  of  the  greater  men,  their  imagination 
was  as  fine  as  their  melody.  As  that  age  grew 
older  they  were  not  replaced  but  were  dominated 
by  more  serious  subjects  ;  and  though  love  in  its 
fantasies  was  happily  recorded  in  song  during  the 
Caroline  period,  passion  in  English  love-poetry 
slowly  decayed  till  the  ideas  of  the  Revolution,  be- 
fore the  French  outbreak,  began  to  renew  the  youth 
of  the  world.  The  same  career  is  run  by  the  individ- 
ual poet.  The  subject  of  his  youth  is  the  passion  of 
love,  as  it  was  in  Browning's  Pauline.  The  sub- 
jects of  his  manhood  are  serious  with  other  thought 
and  feeling,  sad  with  another  sadness,  happy  with 
another  happiness.  They  traverse  a  wider  range 
of  human  feeling  and  thought,  and  when  they  speak 
of  love,  it  is  of  love  in  its  wiser,  steadier,  graver,  and 
less  selfish  forms.  It  was  so  with  Browning,  who  far 
sooner  than  his  comrades,  escaped  from  the  tangled 
wilderness  of  youthful  passion.  It  is  curious  to 
think  that  so  young  a  creature  as  he  was  in  1833 
should  have  left  the  celebration  of  the  love  of 
woman  behind  him,  and  only  written  of  the  love 
which  his  Paracelsus  images  in  Aprile.  It  seems 
a  little  insensitive  in  so  young  a  man.  But  I  do  not 
think  Browning  was  ever  quite  young  save  at  happy 
intervals  ;  and  this  falls  in  with  the  fact  that  his 
imagination  was  more  intellectual  than  passionate ; 
that  while  he  felt  love,  he  also  analysed,  even  dis- 
sected it,  as  he  wrote  about  it ;  that  it  scarcely  ever 
carried  him  away  so  far  as  to  make  him  forget 
everything  but  itself.     Perhaps  once  or  twice,  as 


POEMS   OF  THE  PASSION  OF  LOVE       245 

in  TJie  Last  Ride  Together,  he  may  have  drawn  near 
to  this  absorption,  but  even  then  the  man  is  think- 
ing more  of  his  own  thoughts  than  of  the  woman 
by  his  side,  who  must  have  been  somewhat  wearied 
by  so  silent  a  companion.     Even  in  By  the  Fireside, 
when  he  is  praising  the  wife  whom  he  loved  with 
all  his  soul,  and  recalling  the  moment   of   early 
passion  while  yet  they  looked  on  one  another  and 
felt  their  souls  embrace  before  they  spoke  —  it  is 
curious  to  find  him  deviating  from  the  intensity  of 
the   recollection    into  a  discussion  of  what  might 
have  been  if  she  had  not  been  what  she  was  —  a 
sort  of  exctirsics  on  the  chances  of  life  which  lasts 
for  eight  verses  —  before  he  returns  to  that   im- 
mortal  moment.      Even   after   years   of   married 
life,  a  poet,  to  whom  passion  has  been  in  youth 
supreme,  would  scarcely  have  done  that.     On  the 
whole,  his   poetry,  hke  that  of  Wordsworth,  but 
not  so  completely,  is  destitute  of  the  Love-poem  in 
the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word ;  and  the  few  ex- 
ceptions to  which  we  might  point  want  so  much 
that  exclusiveness  of  a  lover  which  shuts  out  all 
other  thought   but  that  of  the  woman,  that  it  is 
difficult  to  class  them  in  that  species  of  literature. 
However,  this  is  not  altogether  true,  and  the  main 
exception  to  it  is  a  curious  piece  of  literary  and 
personal  history.     Those  who  read  Asolando,  the 
last  book  of  poems  he  published,  were  surprised  to 
find  with  what  intensity  some  of  the  first  poems  in 
it  described  the  passion  of  sexual  love.     They  are 
fully  charged  with  isolated  emotion ;  other  thoughts 
than  those   of   love   do   not   intrude   upon   them. 
Moreover,  they  have  a  sincere   lyric  note.     It  is 
impossible,  unless  by  a  miracle  of  imagination,  that 


246  BROWNING 

these  could  have  been  written  when  he  was  about 
eighty  years  of  age.  I  believe,  though  I  do  not 
know,  that  he  wrote  them  when  he  was  quite  a 
young  man ;  that  he  found  them  on  looking  over 
his  portfolios,  and  had  a  dim  and  scented  pleasure 
in  reading  and  publishing  them  in  his  old  age.  He 
mentions  in  the  preface  that  the  book  contains  both 
old  and  new  poems.  The  new  are  easily  isolated, 
and  the  first  poem,  the  introduction  to  the  collec- 
tion, is  of  the  date  of  the  book.  The  rest  belong 
to  different  periods  of  his  hfe.  The  four  poems  to 
which  I  refer  are  Noiv,  Sinmnum  Bojuiin,  A  Pcmd 
—  A  Girl,  and  Speculative.  They  are  beautiful  with 
a  beauty  of  their  own;  full  of  that  natural  abandon- 
ment of  the  whole  world  for  one  moment  with  the 
woman  loved,  which  youth  and  the  hours  of  youth 
in  manhood  feel.  I  should  have  been  sorry  if 
Browning  had  not  shaped  into  song  this  abandon- 
ment. He  loved  the  natural,  and  was  convinced 
of  its  rightness ;  and  he  had,  as  I  might  prove,  a 
tenderness  for  it  even  when  it  passed  into  wrong. 
He  was  the  last  man  in  the  world  to  think  that  the 
passion  of  noble  sexual  love  was  to  be  despised. 
And  it  is  pleasant  to  find,  at  the  end  of  his  long 
poetic  career,  that,  in  a  serious  and  wise  old  age, 
he  selected,  to  form  part  of  his  last  book,  poems  of 
youthful  and  impassioned  love,  in  which  the  senses 
and  the  spirit  met,  each  in  their  pre-eminence. 

The  two  first  of  these,  Noiv  and  Siimmiim  Boniimy 
must  belong  to  his  youth,  though  from  certain  turns 
of  expression  and  thought  in  them,  it  seems  that 
Browning  worked  on  them  at  the  time  he  published 
them.  I  quote  the  second  for  its  lyric  charm,  even 
though  the  melody  is  ruthlessly  broken. 


POEMS   OF  THE  PASSION  OF  LOVE       247 

All  the  breath  and  the  bloom  of  the  year  in  the  bag  of  one 
bee : 
All  the  wonder  and  wealth  of  the  mine  in  the  heart  of  one 
gem : 
In  the  core  of  one  pearl  all  the  shade  and  the  shine  of  the  sea  : 
Breath  and  bloom,  shade  and  shine,  —  wonder,  wealth,  and 
—  how  far  above  them  — 

Truth,  that's  brighter  than  gem, 
Trust,  that's  purer  than  pearl,  — 
Brightest  truth,  purest  trust  in  the  universe  —  all  were  for  me 
In  the  kiss  of  one  girl. 

The  next  two  poems  are  knit  to  this  and  to  Now  by 
the  strong  emotion  of  earthly  love,  of  the  senses  as 
well  as  of  the  spirit,  for  one  woman;  but  they  differ 
in  the  period  at  which  they  were  written.  The 
first,  A  Pearl — A  Girl,  recalls  that  part  of  the 
poem  By  the  Fireside,  when  one  look,  one  word, 
opened  the  infinite  world  of  love  to  Browning.  If 
written  when  he  was  young,  it  has  been  revised  in 
after  life, 

A  simple  ring  with  a  single  stone 
To  the  vulgar  eye  no  stone  of  price  : 

Whisper  the  right  word,  that  alone  — 
Forth  starts  a  sprite,  like  fire  from  ice, 

And  lo,  you  are  lord  (says  an  Eastern  scroll) 

Of  heaven  and  earth,  lord  whole  and  sole 
Through  the  power  in  a  pearl. 

A  woman  ('tis  I  this  time  that  say) 

With  little  the  world  counts  worthy  praise 

Utter  the  true  word  —  out  and  away 
Escapes  her  soul :  I  am  wrapt  in  blaze, 

Creation's  lord,  of  heaven  and  earth 

Lord  whole  and  sole  —  by  a  minute's  birth  — 
Through  the  love  in  a  girl! 

The  second  —  Speculative  —  also  describes  a 
moment  of  love-longmg,  but  has  the  characteristics 
of  his  later  poetry.  It  may  be  of  the  same  date  as 
the  book,  or  not  much  earlier.     It  may  be  of  his 


248  BROWNING 

later  manhood,  of  the  time  when  he  lost  his  wife. 
At  any  rate,  it  is  intense  enough.  It  looks  back 
on  the  love  he  has  lost,  on  passion  with  the 
woman  he  loved.  And  he  would  surrender  all  — 
Heaven,  Nature,  Man,  Art — in  this  momentary  fire 
of  desire ;  for  indeed  such  passion  is  momentary. 
Momentariness  is  the  essence  of  the  poem.  "  Even 
in  heaven  I  will  cry  for  the  wild  hours  now  gone  by 
— Give  me  back  the  Earth  and  Thyself."  Specie- 
lative,  he  calls  it,  in  an  after  irony. 

Others  may  need  new  life  in  Heaven  — 
1  Man,  Nature,  Art  —  made  new,  assume ! 

Man  with  new  mind  old  sense  to  leaven, 
J  Nature  —  new  light  to  clear  old  gloom, 

/       Art  that  breaks  bounds,  gets  soaring-room. 

I  shall  pray  :  "  Fugitive  as  precious  — 
Minutes  which  passed,  —  return,  remain! 

Let  earth^s  old  life  once  more  enmesh  us, 
You  with  old  pleasure,  me — old  pain, 
So  we  but  meet  nor  part  again  !  " 

Nor  was  this  reversion  to  the  passion  of  youth- 
ful love  altogether  a  new  departure.  The  lyrics 
in  FerisJitaJi  s  Fancies  are  written  to  represent, 
from  the  side  of  emotion,  the  intellectual  and  ethi- 
cal ideas  worked  out  in  the  poems.  The  greater 
number  of  them  are  beautiful,  and  they  would  gain 
rather  than  lose  if  they  were  published  separately 
from  the  poems.  Some  are  plainly  of  the  same 
date  as  the  poems.  Others,  I  think,  were  written  in 
Browning's  early  time,  and  the  preceding  poems 
are  made  to  fit  them.  But  whatever  be  their  origin, 
they  nearly  all  treat  of  love,  and  one  of  them  with 
a  crude  claim  on  the  love  of  the  senses  alone,  as  if 
that  —  as  if  the  love  of  the  body,  even  alone  —  were 


POEMS   OF  THE  PASSION  OF  LOVE       i/^c^ 

not  apart  from  the  consideration  of  a  poet  who 
wished  to  treat  of  the  whole  of  human  nature. 
Browning,  when  he  wished  to  make  a  thought  or  a 
fact  quite  plain,  frequently  stated  it  without  any  of 
its  modifications,  trusting  to  his  readers  not  to  mis- 
take him ;  knowing,  indeed,  that  if  they  cared  to 
find  the  other  side  —  in  this  case  the  love  which 
issues  from  the  senses  and  the  spirit  together,  or 
from  the  spirit  alone  —  they  would  find  it  stated 
just  as  soundly  and  clearly.  He  meant  us  to  com- 
bine both  statements,  and  he  has  done  so  himself 
with  regard  to  love. 

When,  however,  we  have  considered  these  excep- 
tions, it  still  remains  curious  how  little  the  passion- 
ate Love-poem,  with  its  strong  personal  touch, 
exists  in  Browning's  poetry.  One  reason  may  be 
that  Love-poems  of  this  kind  are  naturally  lyrical, 
and  demand  a  sweet  melody  in  the  verse,  and 
Browning's  genius  was  not  especially  lyrical,  nor 
could  he  inevitably  command  a  melodious  move-  f 
ment  in  his  verse.  But  the  main  reason  is  that  he 
was  taken  up  with  other  and  graver  matters,  and 
chiefly  with  the  right  theory  of  life ;  with  the  true 
relation  of  God  and  man ;  and  with  the  picturing 

—  for  absolute  Love's  sake,  and  in  order  to  win 
men  to  love  one  another  by  the  awakening  of  pity 

—  of  as  much  of  humanity  as  he  could  grasp  in 
thought  and  feeling.  Isolated  and  personal  love 
was  only  a  small  part  of  this  large  design. 

One  personal  love,  however,  he  possessed  fully 
and  intensely.  It  was  his  love  for  his  wife,  and 
three  poems  embody  it.  The  first  is  By  the  Fireside. 
It  does  not  take  rank  as  a  true  love  lyric ;  it  is  too 
long,  too  many-motived  for  a  lyric.     It  is  a  medi- 


250  BROWNING 

tative  poem  of  recollective  tenderness  wandering 
through  the  past ;  and  no  poem  written  on  married 
love  in  England  is  more  beautiful.  The  poet,  sit- 
ting silent  in  the  room  where  his  wife  sits  with 
him,  sees  all  his  life  with  her  unrolled,  muses  on 
what  has  been,  and  is,  since  she  came  to  bless  his 
life,  or  what  will  be,  since  she  continues  to  bless 
it;  and  all  the  fancies  and  musings  which,  in  a 
usual  love  lyric,  would  not  harmonise  with  the 
intensity  of  love-passion  in  youth,  exactly  fit  in 
with  the  peace  and  satisfied  joy  of  a  married  Hfe 
at  home  with  God  and  Nature  and  itself.  The 
poem  is  full  of  personal  charm.  Quiet  thought, 
profound  feeling,  and  sweet  memory,  like  a  sunlit 
mist,  soften  the  aspect  of  the  room,  the  image 
of  his  wife,  and  all  the  thoughts,  emotions,  and 
scenery  described.  It  is  a  finished  piece  of  art. 
The  second  of  these  poems  is  the  Epilogue  to 
\  the  volumes  of  Mm  ajid  Women,  entitled  One  Word 
\  More.  It  also  is  a  finished  piece  of  art,  carefully 
/  conceived,  upbuilded  stone  by  stone,  touch  by 
touch,  each  separate  thought  with  its  own  emotion, 
each  adding  something  to  the  whole,  each  pushing 
Browning's  emotion  and  picture  into  our  souls,  till 
the  whole  impression  is  received.  It  is  full,  and 
full  to  the  brim,  with  the  long  experience  of  peace- 
ful joy  in  married  love.  And  the  subtlety  of  the 
close  of  it,  and  of  Browning's  play  with  his  own 
fancy  about  the  moon,  do  not  detract  from  the 
tenderness  of  it ;  for  it  speaks  not  of  transient 
passion  but  of  the  love  of  a  whole  Hfe  lived  from 
end  to  end  in  music. 
/  The  last  of  these  is  entitled  Prospice.  When  he 
/   wrote  it  he  had  lost  his  wife.     It  tells  what  she 


POEMS  OF  THE  PASSION  OF  LOVE       251 

had  made  of  him;  it  reveals  aUke  his  steadfast 
sadness  that  she  had  gone  from  him  and  the  stead- 
fast resolution,  due  to  her  sweet  and  enduring  power, 
with  which,  after  her  death,  he  promised,  bearing 
with  him  his  sorrow  and  his  memory  of  joy,  to 
stand  and  withstand  in  the  battle  of  life,  ever  a 
fighter  to  the  close  —  and  well  he  kept  his  word. 
It  ends  with  the  expression  of  his  triumphant  cer- 
tainty of  meeting  her,  and  breaks  forth  at  last  into 
so  great  a  cry  of  pure  passion  that  ear  and  heart 
alike  rejoice.  Browning  at  his  best.  Browning  in 
the  central  fire  of  his  character,  is  in  it. 

Fear  death  ?  —  to  feel  the  fog  in  my  throat, 

The  mist  in  my  face, 
When  the  snows  begin,  and  the  blasts  denote 

I  am  nearing  the  place, 
The  power  of  the  night,  the  press  of  the  storm, 

The  post  of  the  foe  ; 
Where  he  stands,  the  Arch  Fear  in  a  visible  form, 

Yet  the  strong  man  must  go  : 
For  the  journey  is  done  and  the  summit  attained 

And  the  barriers  fall, 
Though  a  battle's  to  fight  ere  the  guerdon  be  gained, 

The  reward  of  it  all. 
I  was  ever  a  fighter,  so  —  one  fight  more, 

The  best  and  the  last  ! 
I  would  hate  that  Death  bandaged  my  eyes,  and  forbore, 

And  bade  me  creep  past. 
No  !  let  me  taste  the  whole  of  it,  fare  like  my  peers 

The  heroes  of  old, 
Bear  the  brunt,  in  a  minute  pay  glad  life's  arrears 

Of  pain,  darkness,  and  cold. 
For  sudden  the  worst  turns  the  best  to  the  brave, 

The  black  minute's  at  end, 
And  the  elements'  rage,  the  fiend-voices  that  rave, 

Shall  dwindle,  shall  blend, 
Shall  change,  shall  become  first  a  peace  out  of  pain, 

Then  a  light,  then  thy  breast, 
O  thou  soul  of  my  soul  !     I  shall  clasp  thee  again, 
And  with  God  be  the  rest  ! 


252  BROWNING 

Leaving  now  these  personal  poems  on  Love,  we 
come  to  those  we  may  call  impersonal.  They  are 
poems  about  love,  not  in  its  simplicities,  but  in  its 
subtle  moments  —  moments  that  Browning  loved 
to  analyse,  and  which  he  informed  not  so  much 
with  the  passion  of  love,  as  with  his  profound  love 
of  human  nature.  He  describes  in  them,  with  the 
seriousness  of  one  who  has  left  youth  behind,  the 
moods  of  love,  its  changes,  vagaries,  certainties, 
failures,  and  conquests.  It  is  a  man  writing,  not 
of  the  love  of  happy  youth,  but  of  love  tossed  on 
the  stormy  seas  of  manhood  and  womanhood,  and 
modified  from  its  singular  personal  intensity  by  the 
deeper  thought,  feeling,  and  surprising  chances  of 
our  mortal  life.  Love  does  not  stand  alone,  as  in 
the  true  love  lyric,  but  with  many  other  grave 
matters.  As  such  it  is  a  more  interesting  subject 
for  Browning.  For  Love  then  becomes  full  of 
strange  turns,  unexpected  thoughts,  impulses  un- 
known before  creating  varied  circumstances,  and 
created  by  them ;  and  these  his  intellectual  spiritu- 
ality delighted  to  cope  with,  and  to  follow,  laby- 
rinth after  labyrinth.  I  shall  give  examples  of 
these  separate  studies,  which  have  always  an  idea 
beyond  the  love  out  of  which  the  poem  arises.  In 
some  of  them  the  love  is  finally  absorbed  in  the 
idea.  In  all  of  them  their  aim  is  beyond  the  love 
of  which  they  speak. 

Love  among  tJie  Rimis  tells  of  a  lover  going  to 
meet  his  sweetheart.  There  are  many  poems  with 
this  expectant  motive  in  the  world  of  song,  and  no 
motive  has  been  written  of  with  greater  emotion. 
If  we  are  to  believe  these  poems,  or  have  ever 
waited  ourselves,  the  hour  contains  nothing  but  her 


POEMS  OF  THE  PASSION  OF  LOVE       253 

presence,  what  she  is  doing,  how  she  is  coming, 
why  she  delays,  what  it  will  be  when  she  comes  — 
a  thousand  things,  each  like  white  fire  round  her 
image.  But  Browning's  lover,  through  nine  verses, 
cares  only  for  the  wide  meadows  over  which  he 
makes  his  way  and  the  sheep  wandering  over  them, 
and  their  flowers  and  the  ruins  in  the  midst  of 
them ;  musing  on  the  changes  and  contrasts  of  the 
world  —  the  lonely  land  and  the  populous  glory 
which  was  of  old  in  the  vast  city.  It  is  only  then, 
and  only  in  two  lines,  that  he  thinks  of  the  girl 
who  is  waiting  for  him  in  the  ruined  tower.  Even 
then  his  imagination  cannot  stay  with  her,  but 
glances  from  her  instantly  —  thinking  that  the 
ancient  King  stood  where  she  is  waiting,  and 
looked,  full  of  pride,  from  the  high  tower  on  his 
splendid  city.  When  he  has  elaborated  this  sec- 
ond excursion  of  thought  he  comes  at  last  to  the 
girl.  Then  is  the  hour  of  passion,  but  even  in 
its  fervour  he  draws  a  conclusion,  belonging  to  a 
higher  world  than  youthful  love,  as  remote  from 
it  as  his  description  of  the  scenery  and  the  ruins. 
"  Splendour  of  arms,  triumph  of  wealth,  centuries 
of  glory  and  pride,  they  are  nothing  to  love.  Love 
is  best."  It  is  a  general,  not  a  particular  conclu- 
sion. In  a  true  Love-poem  it  would  be  particular. 
Another  poem  of  waiting  love  is  In  Three  Days. 
And  this  has  the  spirit  of  a  true  love  lyric  in  it. 
It  reads  like  a  personal  thing ;  it  breathes  exalta- 
tion ;  it  is  quick,  hurried,  and  thrilled.  The  deli- 
cate fears  of  chance  and  change  in  the  three  days, 
or  in  the  years  to  come,  belong  of  right  and  na- 
ture to  the  waiting,  and  are  subtly  varied  and 
condensed.     It  is,  however,  the  thoughtful  love  of 


254  BROWNING 

a  man  who  can  be  metaphysical  in  love,  not  the 
excluding  mastery  of  passion. 

Tivo  in  the  Campagiia  is  another  poem  in  which 
love  passes  away  into  a  deeper  thought  than  love  — 
a  strange  and  fascinating  poem  of  twofold  desire. 
The  man  loves  a  woman  and  desires  to  be  at  peace 
with  her  in  love,  but  there  is  a  more  imperative 
passion  in  his  soul  —  to  rest  in  the  infinite,  in 
accomplished  perfection.  And  his  livelong  and 
vain  pursuit  of  this  has  wearied  him  so  much  that 
he  has  no  strength  left  to  realise  earthly  love.  Is 
it  possible  that  she  who  now  walks  with  him  in  the 
Campagna  can  give  him  in  her  love  the  peace  of 
the  infinite  which  he  desires,  and  if  not,  why  — 
where  is  the  fault }  For  a  moment  he  seems  to 
catch  the  reason,  and  asks  his  love  to  see  it  with  him 
and  to  grasp  it.  In  a  moment,  like  the  gossamer 
thread  he  traces  only  to  see  it  vanish,  it  is  gone  — 
and  nothing  is  left,  save 

Infinite  passion,  and  the  pain 
Of  finite  hearts  that  yearn. 

Least  of  all  is  the  woman  left.  She  has  quite  dis- 
appeared. This  is  not  a  Love-poem  at  all,  it  is 
the  cry  of  Browning's  hunger  for  eternity  in  the 
midst  of  mortality,  in  which  all  the  hunger  for 
earthly  love  is  burnt  to  dust. 

The  rest  are  chiefly  studies  of  different  kinds  of 
love,  or  of  crises  in  love ;  moments  in  its  course,  in 
its  origin,  or  its  failure.  There  are  many  examples 
in  the  shorter  dramatic  pieces,  as  In  a  Balcony ; 
and  even  in  the  longer  dramas  certain  sharp 
climaxes  of  love  are  recorded,  not  as  if  they  be- 
longed to  the  drama,  but  as  if  they  were  distinct 
studies  introduced  by  chance  or  caprice.     In  the 


POEMS  OF  THE  PASSION  OF  LOVE       255 

short  poems  called  *' dramatic  "  these  studies  are 
numerous,  and  I  group  a  few  of  them  together 
according  to  their  motives,  leaving  out  some  which 
I  shall  hereafter  treat  of  when  I  come  to  discuss 
the  women  in  Browning.  Evelyn  Hope  has  noth- 
ing to  do  with  the  passion  of  love.  The  physical 
element  of  love  is  entirely  excluded  by  the  subject. 
It  is  a  beautiful  expression  of  a  love  purely  spiritual, 
to  be  realised  in  its  fulness  only  after  death,  spirit 
with  spirit,  but  yet  to  be  kept  as  the  master  of  daily 
Hfe,  to  whose  law  all  thought  and  action  are  referred. 
The  thought  is  noble,  the  expression  of  it  simple, 
fine,  and  clear.  It  is,  moreover,  close  to  truth  — 
there  are  hundreds  of  men  who  live  quietly  in  love 
of  that  kind,  and  die  in  its  embrace. 

In  Cristina  the  love  is  just  as  spiritual,  but  the 
motive  of  the  poem  is  not  one,  as  in  Evelyn  Hope, 
but  two.  The  woman  is  not  dead,  and  she  has 
missed  her  chance.  But  the  lover  has  not.  He 
has  seen  her  and  in  a  moment  loved  her.  She 
also  looked  on  him  and  felt  her  soul  matched  by 
his  as  they  "rushed  together."  But  the  world 
carried  her  away  and  she  lost  the  fulness  of  life. 
He,  on  the  contrary,  kept  the  moment  for  ever,  and 
with  it,  her  and  all  she  might  have  been  with  him. 

Her  soul's  mine :  and  thus  grown  perfect, 
I  shall  pass  my  Hfe's  remainder. 

This  is  not  the  usual  Love-poem.  It  is  a  love  as 
spiritual,  as  mystic,  even  more  mystic,  since  the 
woman  lives,  than  the  lover  felt  for  Evelyn  Hope. 
The  second  motive  in  Cristina  of  the  lover  who 
meets  the  true  partner  of  his  soul  or  hers,  and 
either  seizes  the  happy  hour  and  possesses  joy  for 
ever,  or  misses  it  and  loses  all,  is  a  favourite  with 


256  BROWNING 

Browning.  He  repeats  it  frequently  under  diverse 
circumstances,  for  it  opened  out  so  many  various 
endings,  and  afforded  so  much  opportunity  for  his 
beloved  analysis.  Moreover,  optimist  as  he  was 
in  his  final  thought  of  man,  he  was  deeply  con- 
scious of  the  ironies  of  life,  of  the  ease  with  which 
things  go  wrong,  of  the  impossibility  of  setting 
them  right  from  without.  And  in  the  matter  of 
love  he  marks  in  at  least  four  poems  how  the 
moment  was  held  and  life  was  therefore  conquest. 
Then  in  YoiitJi  and  Art,  in  Dis  Aliter  Visum,  in 
BifiLVcatioUy  in  The  Lost  Mistress,  and  in  Too  Late, 
he  records  the  opposite  fate,  and  in  characters  so 
distinct  that  the  repetition  of  the  motive  is  not 
monotonous.  These  are  studies  of  the  Might-have- 
beens  of  love. 

Another  motive,  used  with  varied  circumstance 
in  three  or  four  poems,  but  fully  expanded  in 
James  Lee's  Wife,  is  the  discovery,  after  years  of 
love,  that  love  on  one  side  is  lost  irretrievably. 
Another  motive  is,  that  rather  than  lose  love  men 
or  women  will  often  sacrifice  their  conscience,  their 
reason,  or  their  liberty.  This  sacrifice,  of  all  that 
makes  our  nobler  being  for  the  sake  of  personal 
love  alone,  brings  with  it,  because  the  whole  being 
is  degraded,  the  degradation,  decay,  and  death  of 
personal  love  itself. 

Another  set  of  poems  describes  with  fanciful 
charm,  sometimes  with  happy  gaiety,  love  at  play 
with  itself.  True  love  makes  in  the  soul  an  un- 
fathomable ocean  in  whose  depths  are  the  imagina- 
tions of  love,  serious,  infinite,  and  divine.  But  on 
its  surface  the  fight  of  jewelled  fancies  plays  —  a 
thousand   thousand    sunny  memories   and   hopes, 


POEMS   OF  THE  PASSION  OF  LOVE       257 

flying  thoughts  and  dancing  feelings.  A  poet  would 
be  certain  to  have  often  seen  this  happy  crowd,  and 
to  desire  to  trick  them  out  in  song.  So  Browning 
does  in  his  poem,  /;/  a  Gojidola.  The  two  lovers, 
with  the  dark  shadow  of  fate  brooding  over  them, 
sing  and  muse  and  speak  alternately,  imaging  in 
swift  and  rival  pictures  made  by  fancy  their  deep- 
set  love ;  playing  with  its  changes,  creating  new 
worlds  in  which  to  place  it,  but  always  returning 
to  its  isolated  individuality  ;  recalling  how  it  began, 
the  room  where  it  reached  its  aim,  the  pictures, 
the  furniture,  the  balcony,  her  dress,  all  the  scenery, 
in  a  hundred  happy  and  glancing  pictures ;  while 
interlaced  through  their  gaiety  —  and  the  gaiety 
made  keener  by  the  nearness  of  dark  fate  —  is 
coming  death,  death  well  purchased  by  an  hour  of 
love.  Finally,  the  lover  is  stabbed  and  slain,  and 
the  pity  of  it  throws  back  over  the  sunshine  of 
love's  fancies  a  cloud  of  tears.  This  is  the  stuff 
of  life  that  Browning  loved  to  paint  —  interwoven 
darkness  and  brightness,  sorrow  and  joy  trembling 
each  on  the  edge  of  the  other,  life  playing  at  ball, 
as  joyous  as  Nausicaa  and  her  maids,  on  a  thin 
crust  over  a  gulf  of  death. 

Just  such  another  poem  —  of  the  sportiveness 
of  love,  only  this  time  in  memory,  not  in  present 
pleasure,  is  to  be  found  in  A  Lovers'  Quarrel,  and 
the  quarrel  is  the  dark  element  in  it.  Browning 
always  feels  that  mighty  passion  has  its  root  in 
tragedy,  and  that  it  seeks  relief  in  comedy.  The 
lover  sits  by  the  fireside  alone,  and  recalls,  forgetting 
pain  for  a  moment,  the  joyful  play  they  two  had 
together,  when  love  expressed  its  depth  of  pleasure 
in  dramatic  fancies.     Every  separate  picture  is  done 


258  BROWNING 

in  Browning's  impressionist  way.  And  when  the 
glad  memories  are  over,  and  the  sorrow  returns, 
passion  leaps  out  — 

It  is  twelve  o^clock : 

I  shall  hear  her  knock 
In  the  worst  of  a  storing's  uproar, 

I  shall  pull  her  through  the  door, 
I  shall  have  her  for  evermore! 

This  is  partly  a  study  of  the  memory  of  love ; 
and  Browning  has  represented,  without  any  sorrow 
linked  to  it,  memorial  love  in  a  variety  of  charac- 
ters under  different  circumstances,  so  that,  though 
the  subject  is  the  same,  the  treatment  varies.  A 
charming  instance  of  this  is  The  Flower's  Name ; 
easy  to  read,  happy  in  its  fancy,  in  its  scenery,  in 
the  subtle  play  of  deep  affection,  in  the  character 
of  its  lover,  in  the  character  of  the  girl  who  is 
remembered  —  a  good  example  of  Browning's 
power  to  image  in  a  few  verses  two  human  souls 
/  so  clearly  that  they  live  in  our  world  for  ever.  Meet- 
ing at  Night  —  Parting  at  Morning  is  another  remi- 
niscence, mixed  up  with  the  natural  scenery  of  the 
meeting  and  parting,  a  vivid  recollection  of  a  fleet- 
ing night  of  passion,  and  then  the  abandonment  of 
its  isolation  for  a  wider,  fuller  life  with  humanity. 
I  quote  it  for  the  fine  impassioned  way  in  which 
human  feeling  and  natural  scenery  are  fused 
together. 

Meeting  at  Night 

The  grey  sea  and  the  long  black  land ; 

And  the  yellow  half-moon  large  and  low ; 
And  the  startled  little  waves  that  leap 
In  fiery  ringlets  from  their  sleep, 

As  I  gain  the  cove  with  pushing  prow, 
And  quench  its  speed  i'  the  slushy  sand. 


POEMS  OF  THE  PASSION  OF  LOVE       259 

Then  a  mile  of  warm  sea-scented  beach ; 

Three  fields  to  cross  till  a  farm  appears  ; 
A  tap  at  the  pane,  the  quick  sharp  scratch 
And  blue  spurt  of  a  lighted  match, 

And  a  voice  less  loud,  through  its  joys  and  fears, 
Than  the  two  hearts  beating  each  to  each ! 

Parting  at  Morning 

Round  the  cape  of  a  sudden  came  the  sea. 
And  the  sun  looked  over  the  mountain's  rim : 
And  straight  was  a  path  of  gold  for  him, 

And  the  need  of  a  world  of  men  for  me. 

The  poem  entitled  Confessions  is  another  of  these 
memories,  in  which  a  dying  man,  careless  of  death, 
careless  of  the  dull  conventions  of  the  clergyman, 
cares  for  nothing  but  the  memory  of  his  early 
passion  for  a  girl  one  happy  June,  and  dies  in 
comfort  of  the  sweetness  of  the  memory,  though 

he  thinks  — 

How  sad  and  bad  and  mad  it  was. 

Few  but  Browning  would  have  seen,  and  fewer  still 
have  recorded,  this  vital  piece  of  truth.  It  repre- 
sents a  whole  type  of  character  —  those  who  in  a  Hf  e 
of  weary  work  keep  their  day  of  love,  even  when 
it  has  been  wrong,  as  their  one  poetic,  ideal 
possession,  and  cherish  it  for  ever.  The  wrong  of 
it  disappears  in  the  ideal  beauty  which  now  has 
gathered  round  it,  and  as  it  was  faithful,  unmixed 
with  other  love,  it  escapes  degradation.  We  see, 
when  the  man  images  the  past  and  its  scenery  out 
of  the  bottles  of  physic  on  the  table,  how  the 
material  world  had  been  idealised  to  him  all  his 
life  long  by  this  passionate  memory  • — 

Do  I  view  the  world  as  a  vale  of  tears  ? 
Ah,  reverend  sir,  not  I. 


26o  BROWNING 

It  might  be  well  to  compare  with  this  another 
treatment  of  the  memory  of  love  in  St.  Martin's 
Summer.  A  much  less  interesting  and  natural 
motive  rules  it  than  Confessions ;  and  the  characters, 
though  more  "  in  society  "  than  the  dying  man,  are 
grosser  in  nature ;  gross  by  their  inability  to  love, 
or  by  loving  freshly  to  make  a  new  world  in  which 
the  old  sorrow  dies  or  is  transformed.  There  is  no 
humour  in  the  thing,  though  there  is  bitter  irony. 
But  there  is  humour  in  an  earlier  poem — A  Serenade 
at  the  Villa,  where,  in  the  last  verse,  the  bitter- 
ness of  wrath  and  love  together  (a  very  different 
bitterness  from  that  of  St.  Martins  Snmmer\ 
breaks  out,  and  is  attributed  to  the  garden  gate. 
The  night-watch  and  the  singing  is  over ;  she 
must  have  heard  him,  but  she  gave  no  sign.  He 
wonders  what  she  thought,  and  then,  because  he 
was  only  half  in  love,  flings  away  — 

Oh  how  dark  your  villa  was, 

Windows  fast  and  obdurate! 
How  the  garden  grudged  me  grass 

Where  I  stood  —  the  iron  gate 
Ground  its  teeth  to  let  me  pass! 

It  is  impossible  to  notice  all  these  studies  of 
love,  but  they  form,  together,  a  book  of  transient 
phases  of  the  passion  in  almost  every  class  of 
society.  And  they  show  how  Browning,  passing 
through  the  world,  from  the  Quartier  Latin  to 
London  drawing-rooms,  was  continually  on  the 
watch  to  catch,  store  up,  and  reproduce  a  crowd 
of  motives  for  poetry  which  his  memory  held  and 
his  imagination  shaped. 

There  is  only  one  more  poem,  which  I  cannot 
pass   by  in  this  group  of  studies.     It  is  one  of 


POEMS  OF  THE  PASSION  OF  LOVE       261 

sacred  and  personal  memory,  so  much  so  that  it 
is  probable  the  loss  of  his  life  lies  beneath  it.  It 
rises  into  that  highest  poetry  which  fuses  together 
into  one  form  a  hundred  thoughts  and  a  hundred 
emotions,  and  which  is  only  obscure  from  the 
mingling  of  their  multitude.  I  quote  it,  I  cannot 
comment  on  it. 

Never  the  time  and  the  place 

And  the  loved  one  all  together! 
This  path  —  how  soft  to  pace ! 

This  May  —  what  magic  weather!  i 

Where  is  the  loved  one^s  face?  \ 

In  a  dream  that  loved  one's  face  meets  mine  i 

But  the  house  is  narrow,  the  place  is  bleak         ; 
Where,  outside,  rain  and  wind  combine 
With  a  furtive  ear,  if  I  strive  to  speak. 
With  a  hostile  eye  at  my  flushing  cheek, 
With  a  malice  that  marks  each  word,  each  sign! 
O  enemy  sly  and  serpentine, 
Uncoil  thee  from  the  waking  man!         » 
Do  I  hold  the  Past  / 

Thus  firm  and  fast 
Yet  doubt  if  the  Future  hold  I  can? 
This  path  so  soft  to  pace  shall  lead 
Through  the  magic  of  May  to  herself  indeed! 
Or  narrow  if  needs  the  house  must  be, 
Outside  are  the  storms  and  strangers  :  we  — 
Oh,  close,  safe,  warm  sleep  I  and  she, 
—  I  and  she! 

That,  indeed,  is  passionate  enough. 

Then  there  is  another  group  —  tales  which 
embody  phases  of  love.  Count  Gismond  is  one  of 
these.  It  is  too  long,  and  wants  Browning's  usual 
force.  The  outline  of  the  story  was,  perhaps,  too 
simple  to  interest  his  intellect,  and  he  needed  in 
writing  poetry  not  only  the  emotional  subject,  but 
that  there  should   be  something  in  or  behind  the 


262  BROWNING 

emotion  through  the  mazes  of  which  his  intelHgence 
might  glide  Uke  a  serpent.* 

The  Glove  is  another  of  these  tales  —  a  good 
example  of  the  brilliant  fashion  in  which  Browning 
could,  by  a  strange  kaleidoscopic  turn  of  his  subject, 
give  it  a  new  aspect  and  a  new  ending.  The  world 
has  had  the  tale  before  it  for  a  very  long  time. 
Every  one  had  said  the  woman  was  wrong  and 
the  man  right;  but  here,  poetic  juggler  as  he  is. 
Browning  makes  the  woman  right  and  the  man 
wrong,  reversing  the  judgment  of  centuries.  The 
best  of  it  is,  that  he  seems  to  hold  the  truth  of  the 
thing.  It  is  amusing  to  think  that  only  now,  in  the 
other  world,  if  she  and  Browning  meet,  will  she 
find  herself  comprehended. 

Finally,  as  to  the  mightier  kinds  of  love,  those 
supreme  forms  of  the  passion,  which  have  neither 
beginning  nor  end ;  to  which  time  and  space  are 
but  names  ;  which  make  and  fill  the  universe ;  the 
least  grain  of  which  predicates  the  whole  ;  the  spirit 
of  which  is  God  Himself ;  the  breath  of  whose  life 
is  immortal  joy,  or  sorrow  which  means  joy  ;  whose 
vision  is  Beauty,  and  whose  activity  is  Creation  — 
these,  united  in  God,  or  divided  among  men  into 
their  three  great  entities  —  love  of  ideas  for  their 
truth  and  beauty;  love  of  the  natural  universe, 
which  is  God's  garment ;  love  of  humanity,  which  is 
God's  child — these  pervade  the  whole  of  Browning's 
poetry  as  the  heat  of  the  sun  pervades  the  earth  and 
every  little  grain  upon  it.     They  make  its  warmth 

*  There  is  one  simple  story  at  least  which  he  tells  quite  ad- 
mirably, The  Pied  Piper  of  Ilamelin.  But  then,  that  story,  if  it  is 
not  troubled  by  intellectual  matter,  is  also  not  troubled  by  any 
deep  emotion.  It  is  told  by  a  poet  who  becomes  a  child  for 
children. 


POEMS   OF  THE  PASSION  OF  LOVE       263 

and  life,  strength  and  beauty.  They  are  too  vast 
to  be  circumscribed  in  a  lyric,  represented  in  a 
drama,  bound  up  even  in  a  long  story  of  spiritual 
endeavour  like  Paracelsus.  But  they  move,  in 
dignity,  splendour,  and  passion,  through  all  that  he 
deeply  conceived  and  nobly  wrought ;  and  their 
triumph  and  immortality  in  his  poetry  are  never 
for  one  moment  clouded  with  doubt  or  subject  to 
death.  This  is  the  supreme  thing  in  his  work. 
To  him  Love  is  the  Conqueror,  and  Love  is  God. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  PASSIONS   OTHER    THAN  LOVE 

THE  poems  on  which  I  have  dwelt  in  the  last 
chapter,  though  they  are  mainly  concerned 
with  love  between  the  sexes,  illustrate  the  other 
noble  passions,  all  of  which,  such  as  joy,  are  forms 
of,  or  rather  children  of,  self-forgetful  love.  They 
do  not  illustrate  the  evil  or  ignoble  passions  —  envy, 
jealousy,  hatred,  base  fear,  despair,  revenge,  avarice, 
and  remorse  —  which,  driven  by  the  emotion  that 
so  fiercely  and  swiftly  accumulates  around  them, 
master  the  body  and  soul,  the  intellect  and  the 
will,  like  some  furious  tyrant,  and  in  their  extremes 
hurry  their  victim  into  madness.  Browning  took 
some  of  these  terrible  powers  and  made  them 
subjects  in  his  poetry.  Short,  sharp-outlined 
sketches  of  them  occur  in  his  dramas  and  longer 
poems.  There  is  no  closer  image  in  literature  of 
long-suppressed  fear  breaking  out  into  its  agony  of 
despair  than  in  the  lines  which  seal  Guido's  pleading 

in  TJie  Ring  a7id  the  Book. 

Life  is  all! 
I  was  just  stark  mad,  —  let  the  madman  live 
Pressed  by  as  many  chains  as  you  please  pile! 
Don't  open!     Hold  me  from  them!     I  am  yours, 
I  am  the  Grand  Duke's  —  no,  I  am  the  Pope's! 
Abate  —  Cardinal  —  Christ  —  Maria  —  God  .  .  . 
Pompilia,  will  you  let  them  murder  me? 

264 


THE  PASSIONS   OTHER   THAN  LOVE      265 

But  there  is  no  elaborate,  long-continued  study 
of  these  sordid  and  evil  things  in  Browning.  He 
was  not  one  of  our  modern  realists  who  love  to 
paddle  and  splash  in  the  sewers  of  humanity.  Not 
only  was  he  too  healthy  in  mind  to  dwell  on  them, 
but  he  justly  held  them  as  not  fit  subjects  for  art 
unless  they  were  bound  up  with  some  form  of  pity, 
as  jealousy  and  envy  are  in  Shakespeare's  treatment 
of  the  story  of  Othello ;  or  imaged  along  with  so 
much  of  historic  scenery  that  we  lose  in  our  interest 
in  the  decoration  some  of  the  hatefulness  of  the 
passion.  The  combination,  for  example,  of  envy 
and  hatred  resolved  on  vengeance  in  The  Labora- 
tory is  too  intense  for  any  pity  to  intrude,  but 
Browning  realises  not  only  the  evil  passions  in 
the  woman  but  the  historical  period  also  and  its 
temper;  and  he  fills  the  poem  with  scenery  which, 
though  it  leaves  the  woman  first  in  our  eyes, 
yet  lessens  the  malignant  element.  The  same,  but 
of  course  with  the  difference  Browning's  variety 
creates,  may  be  said  of  the  story  of  the  envious  king, 
where  envy  crawls  into  hatred,  hatred  almost  mo- 
tiveless—  the  histajis  Tyrannus.  A  faint  vein  of 
humour  runs  through  it.  The  king  describes  what 
has  been ;  his  hatred  has  passed.  He  sees  how 
small  and  fanciful  it  was,  and  the  illustrations  he 
uses  to  express  it  tell  us  that;  though  they  carry 
with  them  also  the  contemptuous  intensity  of  his  past 
hatred.  The  swell  of  the  hatred  remains,  though 
the  hatred  is  past.  So  w^e  are  not  left  face  to  face 
with  absolute  evil,  with  the  corruption  hate  en- 
genders in  the  soul.  God  has  intervened,  and 
the  worst  of  it  has  passed  away. 

Then  there  is  the  study  of  hatred  in  the  Soliloquy 


266  BROWNING 

of  the  Spanish  Cloister.  The  hatred  is  black  and 
deadly,  the  instmctive  hatred  of  a  brutal  nature  for 
a  delicate  one,  which,  were  it  unrelieved,  would  be 
too  vile  for  the  art  of  poetry.  But  it  is  relieved, 
not  only  by  the  scenery,  the  sketch  of  the  monks  in 
the  refectory,  the  garden  of  flowers,  the  naughty 
girls  seated  on  the  convent  bank  washing  their  black 
hair,  but  also  by  the  admirable  humour  which  ripples 
like  laughter  through  the  hopes  of  his  hatred,  and 
by  the  brilliant  sketching  of  the  two  men.  We  see 
them,  know  them,  down  to  their  little  tricks  at  din- 
ner, and  we  end  by  realising  hatred,  it  is  true,  but 
in  too  agreeable  a  fashion  for  just  distress. 

In  other  poems  of  the  evil  passions  the  relieving 
element  is  pity.  There  are  the  two  poems  entitled 
Before  and  After,  that  is,  before  and  after  the  duel. 
Before  is  the  statement  of  one  of  the  seconds,  with 
curious  side-thoughts  introduced  by  Browning's 
mental  play  with  the  subject,  that  the  duel  is  abso- 
lutely necessary.  The  challenger  has  been  deeply 
wronged ;  and  he  cannot  and  will  not  let  forgiveness 
intermit  his  vengeance.  The  man  in  us  agrees  with 
that ;  the  Christian  in  us  says,  ''  Forgive,  let  God 
do  the  judgment."  But  the  passion  for  revenge  has 
here  its  way  and  the  guilty  falls.  And  now  let  Brown- 
ing speak  —  Forgiveness  is  right  and  the  vengeance- 
fury  wrong.  The  dead  man  has  escaped,  the  living 
has  not  escaped  the  wrath  of  conscience ;  pity  is  all. 

Take  the  cloak  from  his  face,  and  at  first 
Let  the  corpse  do  its  worst  ! 

How  he  lies  in  his  rights  of  a  man  ! 

Death  has  done  all  death  can. 
And,  absorbed  in  the  new  life  he  leads, 

He  recks  not,  he  heeds 


THE  PASSIONS   OTHER    THAN  LOVE      2.(i'j 

Nor  his  wrong  nor  my  vengeance  ;  both  strike 

On  his  senses  alike, 
And  are  lost  in  the  solemn  and  strange 

Surprise  of  the  change. 

Ha,  what  avails  death  to  erase 

His  offence,  my  disgrace  ? 
I  would  we  were  boys  as  of  old 

In  the  field,  by  the  fold : 
His  outrage,  God's  patience,  man's  scorn 

Were  so  easily  borne ! 

I  stand  here  now,  he  lies  in  his  place ; 
Cover  the  face. 

Again,  there  are  few  studies  in  literature  of  con- 
tempt, hatred,  and  revenge  more  sustained  and  subtle 
than  Browning's  poem  entitled  A  Forgiveness  ;  and 
the  title  marks  how,  though  the  justice  of  revenge 
was  accompHshed  on  the  woman,  yet  that  pity,  even 
love  for  her,  accompanied  and  followed  the  revenge. 
Our  natural  revolt  against  the  cold-blooded  work 
of  hatred  is  modified,  when  we  see  the  man's  heart 
and  the  woman's  soul,  into  pity  for  their  fate.     The 
man  tells  his  story  to  a  monk  in  the  confessional, 
who  has  been  the  lover  of  his  wife.     He  is  a  states- 
man absorbed  in  his  work,  yet  he  feels  that  his  wife 
makes  his  home  a  heaven,  and  he  carries  her  pres- 
ence with  him  all  the  day.     His  wife  takes  the  first 
lover  she  meets,  and,  discovered,  tells  her  husband 
that  she  hates  him.     ''Kill   me  now,"  she  cries. 
But  he  despises  her  too  much  to  hate  her ;  she  is 
not  worth  killing.     Three  years  they  live  together 
in  that  fashion,  till  one  evening  she  tells  him  the 
truth.     "  I  was  jealous  of  your  work.     I  took  my 
revenge  by  taking  a  lover,  but  I  loved  you,  you 
only,  all  the  time,  and  lost  you  — 


268  BROWNING 

I  thought  you  gave 
Your  heart  and  soul  away  from  me  to  slave 
At  statecraft.     Since  my  right  in  you  seemed  lost, 
I  stung  myself  to  teach  you,  to  your  cost, 
What  you  rejected  could  be  prized  beyond 
Life,  heaven,  by  the  first  fool  I  threw  a  fond 
Look  on,  a  fatal  word  to." 

**  Ah,  is  that  true,  you  loved  and  still  love  ?  Then 
contempt  perishes,  and  hate  takes  its  place.  Write 
your  confession,  and  die  by  my  hand.  Vengeance 
is  foreign  to  contempt,  you  have  risen  to  the  level 
at  which  hate  can  act.  I  pardon  you,  for  as  I  slay 
hate  departs  —  and  now,  sir,"  and  he  turns  to  the 

monk  — 

She  sleeps,  as  erst 
Beloved,  in  this  your  church  :  ay,  yours ! 

and  drives  the  poisoned  dagger  through  the  grate 
of  the  confessional  into  the  heart  of  her  lover. 

This  is  Browning's  closest  study  of  hate,  contempt, 
and  revenge.  But  bitter  and  close  as  it  is,  what  is 
left  with  us  is  pity  for  humanity,  pity  for  the  woman, 
pity  for  the  lover,  pity  for  the  husband. 

Again,  in  the  case  of  Sebald  and  Ottima  in  Pippa 
PasseSy  pity  also  rules.  Love  passing  into  lust  has 
led  to  hate,  and  these  two  have  slaked  their  hate 
and  murdered  Luca,  Ottima's  husband.  They  lean 
out  of  the  window  of  the  shrub-house  as  the  morn- 
ing breaks.  For  the  moment  their  false  love  is 
supreme.  Their  crime  only  creeps  like  a  snake, 
half  asleep,  about  the  bottom  of  their  hearts ;  they 
recall  their  early  passion  and  try  to  brazen  it 
forth  in  the  face  of  their  murder,  which  now  rises, 
dreadful  and  more  dreadful,  into  threatening  life  in 
their  soul.     They  reanimate  their  hate  of  Luca  to 


THE  PASSIONS  OTHER   THAN  LOVE      269 

lower  their  remorse,  but  at  every  instant  his  blood 

stains  their  speech.     At  last,  while  Ottima  loves 

on,  Sebald's  dark  horror  turns  to  hatred  of  her  he 

loved,  till  she  lures  him  back  into  desire  of  her 

again.      The    momentary   lust    cannot    last,   but 

Browning   shoots    it    into    prominence    that    the 

outburst   of   horror   and  repentance   may  be  the 

greater. 

I  kiss  you  now,  dear  Ottima,  now  and  now  ! 
This  way  ?     Will  you  forgive  me  —  be  once  more 
My  great  queen? 

At  that  moment  Pippa  passes  by,  singing : 

The  year's  at  the  spring 
And  day's  at  the  morn ; 
Morning's  at  seven ; 
The  hill-side's  dew-pearled  ; 
The  lark's  on  the  wing ; 
The  snail's  on  the  thorn  ; 
God's  in  his  heaven  — 
Alps  right  with  the  world  ! 

Something  in  it  smites  Sebald's  heart  like  a 
hammer  of  God.  He  repents,  but  in  the  cowardice 
of  repentance  curses  her.  That  baseness  I  do  not 
think  Browning  should  have  introduced,  no,  nor 
certain  carnal  phrases  which,  previously  right,  now 
jar  with  the  spiritual  passion  of  repentance.  But 
his  fury  with  her  passes  away  into  the  passion  of 
despair  — 

My  brain  is  drowned  now  —  quite  drowned :  all  I  feel 
Is  .  .  .  is,  at  swift  recurring  intervals, 
A  hurry-down  within  me,  as  of  waters 
Loosened  to  smother  up  some  ghastly  pit : 
There  they  go  —  whirls  from  a  black  fiery  sea  ! 

lines  which  must  have  been  suggested  to  Browning 
by  verses,  briefer  and  more  intense,  in  Webster's 


270  BROWNING 

Duchess  of  Malfi.  Even  Ottima,  lifted  by  her  love, 
which  purifies  itself  in  wishing  to  die  for  her  lover, 
repents. 

Not  me,  —  to  him,  O  God,  be  merciful  ! 

Thus  into  this  cauldron  of  sin  Browning  steals  the 
pity  of  God.  We  know  they  will  be  saved,  so  as 
by  fire. 

Then  there  is  the  poem  on  the  story  of  Cristi7ia 
a?td  Monaldeschi ;  a  subject  too  odious,  I  think,  to 
be  treated  lyrically.  It  is  a  tale  of  love  turned  to 
hatred,  and  for  good  cause,  and  of  the  pitiless 
vengeance  which  followed.  Browning  has  not 
succeeded  in  it ;  and  it  may  be  so  because  he  could 
get  no  pity  into  it.  The  Queen  had  none. 
Monaldeschi  deserved  none  —  a  coward,  a  fool,  and 
a  traitor !  Nevertheless,  more  might  have  been 
made  of  it  by  Browning.  The  poem  is  obscure 
and  wandering,  and  the  effort  he  makes  to  grip  the 
subject  reveals  nothing  but  the  weakness  of  the 
grip.     It  ought  not  to  have  been  pubUshed. 

And  now  I  turn  to  passions  more  delightful,  that 
this  chapter  may  close  in  light  and  not  in  darkness 
—  passions  of  the  imagination,  of  the  romantic 
regions  of  the  soul.  There  is,  first,  the  longing  for 
the  mystic  world,  the  world  beneath  appearance, 
with  or  without  reference  to  eternity.  Secondly, 
bound  up  with  that,  there  is  the  longing  for  the 
unknown,  for  following  the  gleam  which  seems  to 
lead  us  onward,  but  we  know  not  where.  Then, 
there  is  the  desire,  the  deeper  for  its  constant 
suppression,  for  escape  from  the  prison  of  a 
worldly  society,  from  its  conventions  and  maxims 


THE  PASSIONS   OTHER    THAN  LOVE      271 

of  morality,  its  barriers  of  custom  and  rule,  into 
liberty  and  unchartered  life.  Lastly,  there  is  that 
longing  to  discover  and  enjoy  the  lands  of  adven- 
ture and  romance  which  underlies  and  wells  up- 
wards through  so  much  of  modern  life,  and  which 
has  never  ceased  to  send  its  waters  up  to  refresh 
the  world.  These  are  romantic  passions.  On 
the  whole.  Browning  does  not  often  touch  them  in 
their  earthly  activities.  His  highest  romance  was 
beyond  this  world.  It  claimed  eternity,  and  death 
was  the  entrance  into  its  enchanted  realm.  When 
he  did  bring  romantic  feeling  into  human  life,  it 
was  for  the  most  part  in  the  hunger  and  thirst, 
which,  as  in  Abt  Vogler^  urged  men  beyond  the 
visible  into  the  invisible.  But  now  and  again  he 
touched  the  Romantic  of  Earth.  CJiilde  Roland, 
the  Flight  of  the  Dtichess,  and  some  others,  are 
alive  with  the  romantic  spirit. 

But  before  I  write  of  these,  there  are  a  few 
lyrical  poems,  written  in  the  freshness  of  his  youth, 
which  are  steeped  in  the  light  of  the  story-telling 
world ;  and  might  be  made  by  one  who,  in  the 
morning  of  imagination,  sat  on  the  dewy  hills  of 
the  childish  world.  They  are  full  of  unusual 
melody,  and  are  simple  and  wise  enough  to  be 
sung  by  girls  knitting  in  the  sunshine  while  their 
lovers  bend  above  them.  One  of  these,  a  beauti- 
ful thing,  with  that  touch  of  dark  fate  at  its  close 
which  is  so  common  in  folk-stories,  is  hidden  away 
in  Paracelsus.     "  Over  the  sea,"  it  begins : 

Over  the  sea  our  galleys  went. 
With  cleaving  prows  in  order  brave 
To  a  speeding  wind  and  a  bounding  wave, 

A  gallant  armament : 


272  BROWNING 

Each  bark  built  out  of  a  forest-tree 
Left  leafy  and  rough  as  first  it  grew, 
And  nailed  all  over  the  gaping  sides, 
Within  and  without,  with  black  bull-hides, 
Seethed  in  fat,  and  suppled  with  flame. 
To  bear  the  playful  billows'  game. 

It  is  made  in  a  happy  melody,  and  the  curious 
mingling  in  the  tale,  as  it  continues,  of  the  rudest 
ships,  as  described  above,  with  purple  hangings, 
cedar  tents,  and  noble  statues, 

A  hundred  shapes  of  lucid  stone, 

and  with  gentle  islanders  from  Graecian  seas,  is 
characteristic  of  certain  folk-tales,  especially  those 
of  Gascony.  That  it  is  spoken  by  Paracelsus  as 
a  parable  of  the  state  of  mind  he  has  reached,  in 
which  he  cHngs  to  his  first  fault  with  haughty  and 
fooUsh  resolution,  scarcely  lessens  the  romantic 
element  in  it.  That  is  so  strong  that  we  forget 
that  it  is  meant  as  a  parable. 

There  is  another  song  which  touches  the  edge  of 
romance,  in  which  Paracelsus  describes  how  he  will 
bury  in  sweetness  the  ideal  aims  he  had  in  youth, 
building  a  pyre  for  them  of  all  perfumed  things ; 
and  the  last  lines  of  the  verse  I  quote  leave  us  in 
a  castle  of  old  romance  — 

And  strew  faint  sweetness  from  some  old 

Egyptian's  fine  worm-eaten  shroud 
Which  breaks  to  dust  when  once  unrolled: 

Or  shredded  perfume,  like  a  cloud 
From  closet  long  to  quiet  vowed, 
With  mothed  and  dropping  arras  hung, 
Mouldering  her  lute  and  books  among, 
As  when  a  queen,  long  dead,  was  young. 

The  other  is  a  song,  more  than  a  song,  in  Pippa 
Passes,  a  true  piece  of  early  folk-romance,  with  a 


THE  PASSIONS  OTHER   THAN  LOVE      273 

faint  touch  of  Greek  story,  wedded  to  Eastern  and 
mediaeval  elements,  in  its  roving  imaginations.  It 
is  admirably  pictorial,  and  the  air  which  broods 
over  it  is  the  sunny  and  still  air  which,  in  men's 
fancy,  was  breathed  by  the  happy  children  of  the 
Golden  Age.     I  quote  a  great  part  of  it : 

A  King  lived  long  ago, 

In  the  morning  of  the  world, 

When  earth  was  nigher  heaven  than  now : 

And  the  King's  locks  curled, 

Disparting  o'er  a  forehead  full 

As  the  milk-white  space  'twixt  horn  and  horn 

Of  some  sacrificial  bull  — 

Only  calm  as  a  babe  new-born  : 

For  he  was  got  to  a  sleepy  mood, 

So  safe  from  all  decrepitude. 

Age  with  its  bane,  so  sure  gone  by, 

(The  gods  so  loved  him  while  he  dreamed) 

That,  having  Hved  thus  long,  there  seemed 

No  need  that  King  should  ever  die. 
LUIGI.      No  need  that  sort  of  King  should  ever  die ! 

Among  the  rocks  his  city  was : 

Before  his  palace,  in  the  sun, 

He  sat  to  see  his  people  pass, 

And  judge  them  every  one 

From  its  threshold  of  smooth  stone. 

They  haled  him  many  a  valley-thief 

Caught  in  the  sheep-pens,  robber  chief 

Swarthy  and  shameless,  beggar,  cheat, 

Spy-prowler,  or  rough  pirate  found 

On  the  sea-sand  left  aground ; 
***** 

These,  all  and  every  one, 

The  King  judged,  sitting  in  the  sun. 
LUIGI.      That  King  should  still  judge  sitting  in  the  sun  f 

His  councillors,  on  left  and  right, 

Looked  anxious  up,  —  but  no  surprise 

Disturbed  the  King's  old  smihng  eyes 

Where  the  very  blue  had  turned  to  white. 

T 


274  BROWNING 

'Tis  said,  a  Python  scared  one  day 

The  breathless  city,  till  he  came, 

With  forky  tongue  and  eyes  on  flame, 

Where  the  old  King  sat  to  judge  alway ; 

But  when  he  saw  the  sweepy  hair 

Girt  with  a  crown  of  berries  rare 

Which  the  god  will  hardly  give  to  wear 

To  the  maiden  who  singeth,  dancing  bare 

In  the  altar-smoke  by  the  pine-torch  lights, 

At  his  wondrous  forest  rites,  — 

Seeing  this,  he  did  not  dare 

Approach  the  threshold  in  the  sun, 

Assault  the  old  King  smiling  there. 

Such  grace  had  kings  when  the  world  begun! 

Then  there  are  two  other  romantic  pieces,  not 
ringing  with  this  early  note,  but  having  in  them 
a  wafting  scent  of  the  Provencal  spirit.  One  is 
the  song  sung  by  Pippa  when  she  passes  the  room 
where  Jules  and  Phene  are  talking  —  the  song  of 
Kate,  the  Queen.  The  other  is  the  cry  Rudel,  the 
great  troubadour,  sent  out  of  his  heart  to  the  Lady 
of  Tripoli  whom  he  never  saw,  but  loved.  The 
subject  is  romantic,  but  that,  I  think,  is  all  the 
romance  in  it.  It  is  not  Rudel  who  speaks  but 
Browning.  It  is  not  the  twelfth  but  the  nineteenth 
century  which  has  made  all  that  analysis  and  over- 
worked illustration. 

There  remain,  on  this  matter,  Childe  Rola7id  and 
the  Flight  of  the  Duchess.  I  believe  that  Childe 
Rolajid  emerged,  all  of  a  sudden  and  to  Browning's 
surprise,  out  of  the  pure  imagination,  like  the 
Sea-born  Queen  ;  that  Browning  did  not  conceive 
it  beforehand  ;  that  he  had  no  intention  in  it,  no 
reason  for  writing  it,  and  no  didactic  or  moral  aim 
in  it.  It  was  not  even  born  of  his  will.  Nor 
does  he  seem  to  be  acquainted  with  the  old  story 


THE  PASSION'S   OTHER    THAN  LOVE      275 

on  the  subject  which  took  a  ballad  form  in 
Northern  England.  The  impulse  to  write  it  was 
suddenly  awakened  in  him  by  that  Une  out  of  an 
old  song  the  Fool  quotes  in  King  Lear.  There 
is  another  tag  of  a  song  in  Lear  which  stirs  a  host 
of  images  in  the  imagination ;  and  out  of  which 
some  poet  might  create  a  romantic  lyric : 

Still  through  the  hawthorn  blows  the  cold  wind. 

But  it  does  not  produce  so  concrete  a  set  of 
images  as  Childe  Roland  to  the  Dark  Tower  came. 
Browning  has  made  that  his  own,  and  what  he  has 
done  is  almost  romantic.  Almost  romantic,  I  say, 
because  the  pecuharities  of  Browning's  personal 
genius  appear  too  strongly  in  Childe  Roland  for 
pure  romantic  story,  in  which  the  idiosyncrasy  of 
the  poet,  the  personal  element  of  his  fancy,  are 
never  dominant.  The  scenery,  the  images,  the 
conduct  of  the  tales  of  romance,  are,  on  account 
of  their  long  passage  through  the  popular  mind, 
impersonal. 

Moreover,  Browning's  poem  is  too  much  in  the 
vague.  The  romantic  tales  are  clear  in  outline ; 
this  is  not.  But  the  elements  in  the  original  story 
entered,  as  it  were  of  their  own  accord,  into 
Browning.  There  are  several  curious,  unconscious 
reversions  to  folk-lore  which  have  crept  into  his 
work  like  living  things  which,  seeing  Browning 
engaged  on  a  story  of  theirs,  entered  into  it  as 
into  a  house  of  their  own,  and  without  his  know- 
ledge. The  wretched  cripple  who  points  the  way  ; 
the  blind  and  wicked  horse  ;  the  accursed  stream  ; 
the  giant  mountain  range,  all  the  peaks  alive,  as 
if  in  a  nature  myth;  the  crowd  of  Roland's  pre- 


276  BROWNING 

decessors  turned  to  stone  by  their  failure ;  the 
sudden  revealing  of  the  tower  where  no  tower  had 
been,  might  all  be  matched  out  of  folk-stories.  I 
think  I  have  heard  that  Browning  wrote  the  poem 
at  a  breath  one  morning ;  and  it  reads  as  if,  from 
verse  to  verse,  he  did  not  know  what  was  coming 
to  his  pen.  This  is  very  unlike  his  usual  way ; 
but  it  is  very  much  the  way  in  which  tales  of  this 
kind  are  unconsciously  up-built. 

Men  have  tried  to  find  in  the  poem  an  allegory 
of  human  Hfe ;  but  Browning  had  no  allegorising 
intention.  However,  as  every  story  which  was 
ever  written  has  at  its  root  the  main  elements  of 
human  nature,  it  is  always  possible  to  make  an 
allegory  out  of  any  one  of  them.  If  we  like  to 
amuse  ourselves  in  that  fashion,  we  may  do  so  ;  but 
we  are  too  bold  and  bad  if  we  impute  allegory  to 
Browning.  Childe  Roland  is  nothing  more  than  a 
gallop  over  the  moorlands  of  imagination  ;  and  the 
skies  of  the  soul,  when  it  was  made,  were  dark  and 
threatening  storm.  But  one  thing  is  plain  in  it : 
it  is  an  outcome  of  that  passion  for  the  mystical 
world,  for  adventure,  for  the  unknown,  which  lies 
at  the  root  of  the  romantic  tree. 

The  Flight  of  the  Duchess  is  full  of  the  passion 
of  escape  from  the  conventional ;  and  nowhere  is 
Browning  more  original  or  more  the  poet.  Its 
manner  is  exactly  right,  exactly  fitted  to  the  cha- 
racter and  condition  of  the  narrator,  who  is  the 
duke's  huntsman.  Its  metrical  movement  is  ex- 
cellent, and  the  changes  of  that  movement  are  in 
harmony  with  the  things  and  feelings  described. 
It  is  astonishingly  swift,  alive,  and  leaping ;  and 
it   delays,  as   a    stream,  with  great  charm,  when 


THE  PASSIONS  OTHER   THAN  LOVE      277 

the  emotion  of  the  subject  is  quiet,  recollective,  or 
deep.     The  descriptions  of  Nature  in  the  poem  are 
some  of  the  most  vivid  and   true  in    Browning's 
work.     The  sketches  of   animal  life  — so  natural 
on  the  Hps  of  the  teller  of  the  story  — are  done  from 
the  keen  observation  of  a  huntsman,  and  with  his 
love  for  the  animals  he  has  fed,  followed,  and  slain. 
And,  through  it  all,  there  breathes  the  romantic 
passion  —  to  be  out  of  the  world  of  custom  and 
commonplace,  set  free  to  wander  for  ever  to  an 
unknown  goal ;  to  drink  the  air  of  adventure  and 
change ;  not  to  know  to-day  what  will  take  place 
to-morrow,  only  to  know  that  it  will  be  different ; 
to  ride  on  the  top  of  the  wave  of  life  as  it  runs 
before  the  wind ;  to  live  with  those  who  live,  and 
are  of  the  same  mind ;  to  be  loved  and  to  find  love 
the  best  good  in  the  world;   to  be  the  centre  of 
hopes  and  joys  among  those  who  may  blame  and 
give  pain,  but  who  are  never  indifferent ;  to  have 
many  troubles,  but  always  to  pursue  their  far-off 
good;  to  wring  the  life  out  of  them,  and,  at  the  last, 
to  have  a  new  life,  joy,  and  freedom  in  another  and  a 
fairer  world.     But  let  Browning  tell  the  end  : 

So,  at  the  last  shall  come  old  age, 

Decrepit  as  befits  that  stage ; 

How  else  would'st  thou  retire  apart 

With  the  hoarded  memories  of  thy  heart, 

And  gather  all  to  the  very  least 

Of  the  fragments  of  life's  earlier  feast, 

Let  fall  through  eagerness  to  find 

The  crowning  dainties  yet  behind? 

Ponder  on  the  entire  past 

Laid  together  thus  at  last, 

When  the  twilight  helps  to  fuse 

The  first  fresh  with  the  faded  hues, 

And  the  outline  of  the  whole 

Grandly  fronts  for  once  thy  soul. 


278  BROWNING 

And  then  as,  'mid  the  dark,  a  gleam 
Of  yet  another  morning  breaks, 
And,  like  the  hand  which  ends  a  dream, 
Death,  with  the  might  of  his  sunbeam. 
Touches  the  flesh,  and  the  soul  awakes, 
Then 

Then  the  romance  of  life  sweeps  into  the  world 
beyond.  But  even  in  that  world  the  duchess  will 
never  settle  down  to  a  fixed  life.  She  will  be,  like 
some  of  us,  a  child  of  the  wandering  tribes  of 
eternity. 

This  romantic  passion  which  never  dies  even 
in  our  modern  society,  is  embodied  in  the  gipsy 
crone  who,  in  rags  and  scarcely  clinging  to  life, 
suddenly  lifts  into  youth  and  queenliness,  just  as 
in  a  society,  where  romance  seems  old  or  dead,  it 
springs  into  fresh  and  lovely  life.  This  is  the  heart 
of  the  poem,  and  it  is  made  to  beat  the  more 
quickly  by  the  wretched  attempt  of  the  duke  and 
his  mother  to  bring  back  the  observances  of  the 
Middle  Ages  without  their  soul.  Nor  even  then 
does  Browning  leave  his  motive.  The  huntsman 
has  heard  the  gipsy's  song ;  he  has  seen  the  light 
on  his  mistress'  face  as  she  rode  away  —  the  light 
which  is  not  from  sun  or  star  —  and  the  love  of  the 
romantic  world  is  born  in  him.  He  will  not  leave 
his  master ;  there  his  duty  lies.  "  I  must  see  this 
fellow  his  sad  Hfe  through."  But  then  he  will  go 
over  the  mountains,  after  his  lady,  leaving  the 
graves  of  his  wife  and  children,  into  the  unknown, 
to  find  her,  or  news  of  her,  in  the  land  of  the 
wanderers.  And  if  he  never  find  her,  if,  after 
pleasant  journeying,  earth  cannot  give  her  to  his 
eyes,  he  will  still  pursue  his  quest  in  a  world  where 
romance  and  formality  are  not  married  together. 


THE  PASSIONS  OTHER   THAN  LOVE      279 

So  I  shall  find  out  some  snug  corner, 
Under  a  hedge,  like  Orson  the  wood-knight, 
Turn  myself  round  and  bid  the  world  Good  Night ; 
And  sleep  a  sound  sleep  till  the  trumpet's  blowing 
Wakes  me  (unless  priests  cheat  us  laymen) 
To  a  world  where  will  be  no  further  throwing 
Pearls  before  swine  that  can't  value  them.    Amen  ! 


CHAPTER  XI 

IMA  GIN  A  TIVE  REPRESENTA  TIONS 

ALL  poems  might  be  called  '*  imaginative  repre- 
sentations." But  the  class  of  poems  in 
Browning's  work  to  which  I  give  that  name  stands 
apart.  It  includes  such  poems  as  Cleon,  Caliban 
on  Setebos^  Fi'a  Lippo  Lippi,  the  Epistle  of  KarsJiish^ 
and  they  isolate  themselves,  not  only  in  Browning's 
poetry,  but  in  English  poetry.  They  have  some 
resemblance  in  aim  and  method  to  the  monologues 
of  Tennyson,  such  as  the  Nor-thern  Farmer  or 
Rizpah,  but  their  aim  is  much  wider  than  Tenny- 
son's, and  their  method  far  more  elaborate  and 
complex. 

What  do  they  represent .''  To  answer  this  is  to 
define  within  what  limits  I  give  them  the  name  of 
"  imaginative  representations."  They  are  not  only 
separate  studies  of  individual  men  as  they  breathed 
and  spoke;  face,  form,  tricks  of  body  recorded; 
intelligence,  character,  temper  of  mind,  spiritual 
aspiration  made  clear  —  Tennyson  did  that;  they 
are  also  studies  of  these  individual  men  —  Cleon, 
Karshish,  and  the  rest  —  as  general  types,  repre- 
sentative images,  of  the  age  in  which  they  Hved ; 
or  of  the  school  of  art  to  which  they  belonged  ; 
or  of  the  crisis  in  theology,  religion,  art,  or  the 

280 


IMAGINATIVE  REPRESENTATIONS        281 

social  movement  which  took  place  while  the  men 
they  paint  were  alive,  and  which  these  men  led,  or 
formed,  or  followed.  That  is  their  main  element, 
and  it  defines  them. 

They  are  not  dramatic.  Their  action  and  ideas 
are  confined  to  one  person,  and  their  circumstance 
and  scenery  to  one  time  and  place.  But  Browning, 
unlike  Tennyson,  filled  the  background  of  the  stage 
on  which  he  placed  his  single  figure  with  a  multi- 
tude of  objects,  or  animals,  or  natural  scenery,  or 
figures  standing  round  or  in  motion;  and  these 
give  additional  vitality  and  interest  to  the  repre- 
sentation. Again,  they  are  short,  as  short  as  a 
soliloquy  or  a  letter  or  a  conversation  in  a  street. 
Shortness  belongs  to  this  form  of  poetic  work  — 
a  form  to  which  Browning  gave  a  singular  in- 
tensity. It  follows  that  they  must  not  be  argu- 
mentative beyond  what  is  fitting.  Nor  ought  they 
to  glide  into  the  support  of  a  thesis,  or  into  didac- 
tic addresses,  as  BisJwp  Blougrani  and  Mr.  Sludge 
do.  These  might  be  called  treatises,  and  are  apart 
from  the  kind  of  poem  of  which  I  speak.  They 
begin,  indeed,  within  its  Umits,  but  they  soon 
transgress  those  limits ;  and  are  more  properly 
classed  with  poems  which,  also  representative,  have 
not  the  brevity,  the  scenery,  the  lucidity,  the 
objective  representation,  the  concentration  of  the 
age  into  one  man's  mind,  which  mark  out  these 
poems  from  the  rest,  and  isolate  them  into  a  class 
of  their  own. 

The  voice  we  hear  in  them  is  rarely  the  voice  of 
Browning ;  nor  is  the  mind  of  their  personages  his 
mind,  save  so  far  as  he  is  their  creator.  There  are 
a  few  exceptions  to  this,  but,  on  the  whole,  Brown- 


282  BROWNING 

ing  has,  in  writing  these  poems,  stripped  himself  of 
his  own  personality.  He  had,  by  creative  power, 
made  these  men ;  cast  them  off  from  himself,  and 
put  them  into  their  own  age.  They  talk  their 
minds  out  in  character  with  their  age.  Browning 
seems  to  watch  them,  and  to  wonder  how  they  got 
out  of  his  hands  and  became  men.  That  is  the 
impression  they  make,  and  it  predicates  a  singular 
power  of  imagination.  Like  the  Prometheus  of 
Goethe,  the  poet  sits  apart,  moulding  men  and  then 
endowing  them  with  life.  But  he  cannot  tell,  any 
more  than  Prometheus,  what  they  will  say  and  do 
after  he  has  made  them.  He  does  tell,  of  course, 
but  that  is  not  our  impression.  Our  impression  is 
that  they  live  and  talk  of  their  own  accord,  so 
vitally  at  home  they  are  in  the  country,  the  scenery, 
and  the  thinking  of  the  place  and  time  in  which 
he  has  imagined  them. 

Great  knowledge  seems  required  for  this,  and 
Browning  had  indeed  an  extensive  knowledge  not 
so  much  of  the  historical  facts,  as  of  the  tendencies 
of  thought  which  worked  in  the  times  wherein  he 
placed  his  men.  But  the  chief  knowledge  he  had, 
through  his  curious  reading,  was  of  a  multitude  of 
small  intimate  details  of  the  customs,  clothing, 
architecture,  dress,  popular  talk,  and  scenery  of  the 
towns  and  country  of  Italy  from  the  thirteenth 
century  up  to  modern  times.  To  every  one  of 
these  details  —  such  as  are  found  in  SordeliOy  in 
Fra  Lippo  Lippiy  in  the  Bishop  orders  his  Tomb 
at  St.  P raxed s  Church  —  his  vivid  and  grasping 
imagination  gave  an  uncommon  reality. 

But  even  without  great  knowledge  such  poems 
may  be  written,  if  the  poet  have  imagination,  and 


IMAGIIVATIVE  REPRESENTATIONS         283 

the  power  to  execute  in  metrical  words  what  has 
been  imagined.  Theology  in  the  Islarid  and  the 
prologue  to  a  Death  in  the  Desert  are  examples  of 
this.  Browning  knew  nothing  of  that  island  in 
the  undiscovered  seas  where  Prosper  dwelt,  but  he 
made  all  the  scenery  of  it  and  all  its  animal  life, 
and  he  re-created  Caliban.  He  had  never  seen 
the  cave  in  the  desert  where  he  placed  John  to  die, 
nor  the  sweep  of  rocky  hills  and  sand  around  it, 
nor  the  Bactrian  waiting  with  the  camels.  Other 
poets,  of  course,  have  seen  unknown  lands  and 
alien  folks,  but  he  has  seen  them  more  vividly, 
more  briefly,  more  forcibly.  His  imagination  was 
objective  enough. 

But  it  was  as  subjective  as  it  was  objective.  He 
saw  the  soul  of  Fra  Lippo  Lippi  and  the  soul  of  his 
time  as  vividly  as  he  saw  the  streets  of  Florence  at 
night,  the  watch,  the  laughing  girls,  and  the  palace 
of  the  Medici  round  the  corner.  It  was  a  remark- 
able combination,  and  it  is  by  this  combination  of 
the  subjective  and  objective  imagination  that  he 
draws  into  some  dim  approach  to  Shakespeare ; 
and  nowhere  closer  than  in  these  poems. 

Again,  not  only  the  main  character  of  each  of 
these  poems,  but  all  the  figures  introduced  (some- 
times only  in  a  single  line)  to  fill  up  the  back- 
ground, are  sketched  with  as  true  and  vigorous  a 
pencil  as  the  main  figure ;  are  never  out  of  place 
or  harmony  with  the  whole,  and  are  justly  sub- 
ordinated. The  young  men  who  stand  round  the 
Bishop's  bed  when  he  orders  his  tomb,  the  watch- 
men in  Fra  Lippo  Lippi,  the  group  of  St  John's 
disciples,  are  as  alive,  and  as  much  in  tune  with 
the  whole,  as  the  servants  and  tenants  of  Justice 


284  BROWNING 

Shallow.  Again,  it  is  not  only  the  lesser  figures, 
but  the  scenery  of  these  poems  which  is  worth  our 
study.  That  also  is  closely  fitted  to  the  main  sub- 
ject. The  imagination  paints  it  for  that,  and  noth- 
ing else.  It  would  not  fit  any  other  subject.  For 
imagination,  working  at  white  heat,  cannot  do  what 
is  out  of  harmony ;  no  more  than  a  great  musician 
can  introduce  a  false  chord.  All  goes  together  in 
these  poems  —  scenery,  characters,  time,  place,  and 
action. 

Then,  also,  the  extent  of  their  range  is  remark- 
able. Their  subjects  begin  with  savage  man  making 
his  god  out  of  himself.  They  pass  through  Greek 
mythology  to  early  Christian  times  ;  from  Artemis 
and  Pan  to  St.  John  dying  in  the  desert.  Then, 
still  in  the  same  period,  while  Paul  was  yet  alive, 
he  paints  another  aspect  of  the  time  in  Cleon  the 
rich  artist,  the  friend  of  kings,  who  had  reached 
the  top  of  life,  included  all  the  arts  in  himself,  yet 
dimly  craved  for  more  than  earth  could  give.  From 
these  times  the  poems  pass  on  to  the  early  and  late 
Renaissance,  and  from  that  to  the  struggle  for  free- 
dom in  Italy,  and  from  that  to  modern  life  in 
Europe.  This  great  range  illustrates  the  penetra- 
tion and  the  versatility  of  his  genius.  He  could 
place  us  with  ease  and  truth  at  Corinth,  Athens,  or 
Rome,  in  Paris,  Vienna,  or  London ;  and  wherever 
we  go  with  him  we  are  at  home. 

One  word  more  must  be  said  about  the  way  a 
great  number  of  these  poems  arose.  They  leaped 
up  in  his  imagination  full-clad  and  finished  at  a 
single  touch  from  the  outside.  Caliban  iipoii  Setebos 
took  its  rise  from  a  text  in  the  Bible  which  darted 
into  his  mind  as  he  read  the  Tempest.     Cleon  arose 


IMAGINATIVE  REPRESENTATIONS         285 

as  he  read  that  verse  in  St.  Paul's  speech  at 
Athens,  ''As  certain  also  of  your  own  poets  have 
said."  I  fancy  that  An  Epistle  of  KarsJiish  was 
born  one  day  when  he  read  those  two  stanzas  in 
hi  Mcmoriavi  about  Lazarus,  and  imagined  how 
the  subject  would  come  to  him.  Fra  Lippo  Lippi 
slipped  into  his  mind  one  day  at  the  Belle  Arti  at 
Florence  as  he  stood  before  the  picture  described  in 
the  poem,  and  walked  afterwards  at  night  through 
the  streets  of  Florence.  These  fine  things  are  born 
in  a  moment,  and  come  into  our  world  from  poet, 
painter,  and  musician,  full-grown;  built,  Hke  Alad- 
din's palace,  with  all  their  jewels,  in  a  single  night. 
They  are  inexpHcable  by  any  scientific  explana- 
tion, as  inexplicable  as  genius  itself.  When  have 
the  hereditarians  explained  Shakespeare,  Mozart, 
Turner }  When  has  the  science  of  the  world  ex- 
plained the  birth  of  a  lyric  of  Burns,  a  song  of 
Beethoven,  or  a  drawing  of  Rafael.'*  Let  these 
gentlemen  veil  their  eyes,  and  confess  their  inability 
to  explain  the  facts.  For  it  is  fact  they  touch. 
''  Full  fathom  five  thy  father  lies"  —  that  song  of 
Shakespeare  exists.  The  overture  to  Don  Giovanni 
is  a  reality.  We  can  see  the  Bacchus  and  Ariadne 
at  the  National  Gallery  and  the  Theseus  at  the 
Museum.  These  are  facts  ;  but  they  are  a  million 
million  miles  beyond  the  grasp  of  any  science. 
Nay,  the  very  smallest  things  of  their  kind,  the 
slightest  water-colour  sketch  of  Turner,  a  half- 
finished  clay  sketch  of  Donatello,  the  little  song 
done  in  the  corner  of  a  provincial  paper  by  a  work- 
ing clerk  in  a  true  poetic  hour,  are  not  to  be  fathomed 
by  the  most  far-descending  plummet  of  the  scientific 
understanding.      These  things  are  in  that  super- 


286  BROWNING 

physical  world  into  which,  however  closely  he  saw 
and  dealt  with  his  characters  in  the  world  of  the 
senses,  the  conscience,  or  the  understanding,  Brown- 
ing led  them  all  at  last. 

The  first  of  these  poems  is  Natiu^al  Theology  on 
the  Island ;  or,  Caliban  npoji  Setebos.  Caliban,  with 
the  instincts  and  intelligence  of  an  early  savage, 
has,  in  an  hour  of  holiday,  set  himself  to  conceive 
what  Setebos,  his  mother's  god,  is  like  in  character. 
He  talks  out  the  question  with  himself,  and  because 
he  is  in  a  vague  fear  lest  Setebos,  hearing  him 
soliloquise  about  him,  should  feel  insulted  and 
swing  a  thunder-bolt  at  him,  he  not  only  hides 
himself  in  the  earth,  but  speaks  in  the  third  person, 
as  if  it  was  not  he  that  spoke ;  hoping  in  that 
fashion  to  trick  his  God. 

Browning,  conceiving  in  himself  the  mind  and 
temper  of  an  honest,  earthly,  imaginative  savage  — 
who  is  developed  far  enough  to  build  nature-myths 
in  their  coarse  early  forms  —  architectures  the 
character  of  Setebos  out  of  the  habits,  caprices, 
fancies,  likes  and  dislikes,  and  thoughts  of  Caliban ; 
and  an  excellent  piece  of  penetrative  imagination  it 
is.  Browning  has  done  nothing  better,  though  he 
has  done  as  well. 

But  Browning's  Caliban  is  not  a  single  personage. 
No  one  savage,  at  no  one  time,  would  have  all  these 
thoughts  of  his  God.  He  is  the  representative  of 
what  has  been  thought,  during  centuries,  by  many 
thousands  of  men  ;  the  concentration  into  one  mind 
of  the  ground-thoughts  of  early  theology.  At  one 
point,  as  if  Browning  wished  to  sketch  the  beginning 
of  a  new  theological  period,  Caliban  represents  a 
more  advanced  thought  than  savage  man  conceives. 


IMAGINATIVE  REPRESENTATIONS         287 

This  is  Caliban's  imagination  of  a  higher  being  than 
Setebos  who  is  the  capricious  creator  and  power  of 
the  earth  —  of  the  "  Quiet,"  who  is  master  of  Setebos 
and  whose  temper  is  quite  different ;  who  also 
made  the  stars,  things  which  Caliban,  with  a  touch 
of  Browning's  subtle  thought,  separates  from  the 
sun  and  moon  and  earth.  It  is  plain  from  this,  and 
from  the  whole  argument  which  is  admirably  con- 
ducted, that  Caliban  is  an  intellectual  personage, 
too  long  neglected  ;  and  Prospero,  could  he  have 
understood  his  nature,  would  have  enjoyed  his  con- 
versation. Renan  agreed  with  Browning  in  this 
estimate  of  his  intelligence,  and  made  him  the 
foundation  of  a  philosophical  play. 

There  is  some  slight  reason  for  this  in  Shake- 
speare's invention.  He  lifts  Caliban  in  intellect, 
even  in  feeling,  far  above  Trinculo,  Stephano,  the 
Boatswain,  and  the  rest  of  the  common  men.  The 
objection,  however,  has  been  made  that  Browning 
makes  him  too  intelligent.  The  answer  is  that 
Browning  is  not  drawing  Caliban  only,  but  em- 
bodying in  an  imagined  personage  the  thoughts 
about  God  Ukely  to  be  invented  by  early  man 
during  thousands  of  years  —  and  this  accounts  for 
the  insequences  in  Caliban's  thinking.  They  are 
not  the  thoughts  of  one  but  of  several  men.  Yet 
a  certain  poetic  unity  is  given  to  them  by  the 
unity  of  place.  The  continual  introduction  of  the 
landscape  to  be  seen  from  his  refuge  knits  the 
discursive  thinking  of  the  savage  into  a  kind  of 
unity.  We  watch  him  lying  in  the  thick  water- 
sHme  of  the  hollow,  his  head  on  the  rim  of  it 
propped  by  his  hands,  under  the  cave's  mouth, 
hidden  by  the  gadding  gourds  and  vines ;  looking 


288  BROWNING 

out  to  sea  and  watching  the  wild  animals  that  pass 
him  by  —  and  out  of  this  place  he  does  not  stir. 

In  Shakespeare's  Tempest  Caliban  is  the  gross, 
brutal  element  of  the  earth  and  is  opposed  to  Ariel, 
the  light,  swift,  fine  element  of  the  air.  Caliban 
curses  Prospero  with  the  evils  of  the  earth,  with 
the  wicked  dew  of  the  fen  and  the  red  plague  of  the 
sea-marsh.  Browning's  Caliban  does  not  curse  at 
all.  When  he  is  not  angered,  or  in  a  caprice,  he 
is  a  good-natured  creature,  full  of  animal  enjoyment. 
He  loves  to  lie  in  the  cool  slush,  like  a  lias-lizard, 
shivering  with  earthy  pleasure  when  his  spine  is 
tickled  by  the  small  eft-things  that  course  along  it, 

Run  in  and  out  each  arm,  and  make  him  laugh. 

The  poem  is  full  of  these  good,  close,  vivid  realisa- 
tions of  the  brown  prolific  earth. 

Browning  had  his  own  sympathy  with  Caliban. 
Nor  does  Shakespeare  make  him  altogether  brutish. 
He  has  been  so  educated  by  his  close  contact  with 
Nature  that  his  imagination  has  been  kindled.  His 
very  cursing  is  imaginative  : 

As  wicked  dew  as  e'er  my  mother  brushed 
With  raven's  feather  from  unwholesome  fen 
Drop  on  you  both  ;  a  south-west  blow  on  you 
And  blister  you  all  o'er. 

Stephano  and  Trinculo,  vulgar  products  of  civili- 
sation, could  never  have  said  that.  Moreover, 
Shakespeare's  Caliban,  like  Browning's,  has  the 
poetry  of  the  earth-man  in  him.  When  Ariel  plays, 
Trinculo  and  Stephano  think  it  must  be  the  devil, 
and  Trinculo  is  afraid  :  but  Caliban  loves  and 
enjoys  the  music  for  itself : 


IMAGINATIVE  REPRESENTATION'S         289 

Be  not  afear'd ;  the  isle  is  full  of  noises, 

Sounds  and  sweet  airs,  that  give  delight  and  hurt  not. 

Sometimes  a  thousand  twangling  instruments 

Will  hum  about  mine  ears,  and  sometimes  voices 

That,  if  I  then  had  waked  after  long  sleep, 

Will  make  me  sleep  again. 

Stephano  answers,  like  a  modern  millionaire : 

This  will  prove  a  brave  kingdom  for  me,  where  I  shall  have 
my  music  for  nothing. 

Browning's  Caliban  is  also  something  of  a  poet, 
and  loves  the  Nature  of  whom  he  is  a  child.  We 
are  not  surprised  when  he 

looks  out  o'er  yon  sea  which  sunbeams  cross 
And  recross  till  they  weave  a  spider  web 
(Meshes  of  fire  some  great  fish  breaks  at  times) 

though  the  phrase  is  full  of  a  poet's  imagination,  for 
so  the  living  earth  would  see  and  feel  the  sea.  It 
belongs  also  to  Caliban's  nearness  to  the  earth  that 
he  should  have  the  keenest  of  eyes  for  animals,  and 
that  poetic  pleasure  in  watching  their  life  which, 
having  seen  them  vividly,  could  describe  them 
vividly.  I  quote  one  example  from  the  poem  ;  there 
are  many  others : 

'Thinketh,  He  made  thereat  the  sun,  this  isle, 

Trees  and  the  fowls  here,  beast  and  creeping  thing. 

Yon  otter,  sleek-wet,  black,  lithe  as  a  leech ; 

Yon  auk,  one  fire-eye  in  a  ball  of  foam, 

That  floats  and  feeds  ;  a  certain  badger  brown 

He  hath  watched  hunt  with  that  slant  white-wedge  eye 

By  moonlight ;  and  the  pie  with  the  long  tongue 

That  pricks  deep  into  oakwarts  for  a  worm. 

And  says  a  plain  word  when  she  finds  her  prize, 

But  will  not  eat  the  ants ;  the  ants  themselves 

That  build  a  wall  of  seeds  and  settled  stalks 

About  their  hole  — 

There  are  two  more  remarks  to  make  about  this 
u 


290  BROWNING 

poem.  First,  that  Browning  makes  Caliban  create  a 
dramatic  world  in  which  Miranda,  Ariel,  and  he 
himself  play  their  parts,  and  in  which  he  assumes 
the  part  of  Prosper.  That  is,  Caliban  invents  a  new 
world  out  of  the  persons  he  knows,  but  different 
from  them,  and  a  second  self  outside  himself.  No 
lower  animal  has  ever  conceived  of  such  a  creation. 
Secondly,  Browning  makes  Caliban,  in  order  to 
exercise  his  wit  and  his  sense  of  what  is  beautiful, 
fall  to  making  something  —  a  bird,  an  insect,  or  a 
building  which  he  ornaments,  which  satisfies  him 
for  a  time,  and  which  he  then  destroys  to  make  a 
better.  This  is  art  in  its  beginning  ;  and  the  high- 
est animal  we  know  of  is  incapable  of  it.  We  know 
that  the  men  of  the  caves  were  capable  of  it.  When 
they  made  a  drawing,  a  piece  of  carving,  they  were 
unsatisfied  until  they  had  made  a  better.  When 
they  made  a  story  out  of  what  they  knew  and  saw, 
they  went  on  to  make  more.  Creation,  invention, 
art  —  this,  independent  entirely  of  the  religious 
desire,  makes  the  infinite  gulf  which  divides  man 
from  the  highest  animals. 

I  do  not  mean,  in  this  book,  to  speak  of  the 
theology  of  Caliban,  though  the  part  of  the  poem 
which  concerns  the  origin  of  sacrifice  is  well  worth 
our  attention.  But  the  poem  may  be  recommended 
to  those  theological  persons  who  say  there  is  no 
God;  and  to  that  large  class  of  professional  theo- 
logians, whose  idea  of  a  capricious,  jealous,  sud- 
denly-angered God,  without  any  conscience  except 
his  sense  of  power  to  do  as  he  pleases,  is  quite  in 
harmony  with  Caliban's  idea  of  Setebos. 

The  next  of  these  "  imaginative  representations  " 
is  the  poem  called   Cleoji.      Cleon  is  a  rich  and 


IMAGINATIVE  REPRESENTATIONS        291 

famous   artist   of   the    Graecian   isles,  alive   while 
St.  Paul  was  still  making  his  missionary  journeys, 
just  at  the  time  when  the  Graeco-Roman  culture 
had  attained  a  height  of  refinement,  but  had  lost 
originating  power;  when  it  thought  it  had  mastered 
all  the  means  for  a  perfect  Hfe,  but  was,  in  reality, 
trembling  in  a  deep  dissatisfaction  on  the  edge  of 
its  first  descent  into  exhaustion.     Then,  as  every- 
thing good  had  been  done  in  the  art  of  the  past, 
cultivated  men  began  to  ask  "  Was  there  anything 
worth  doing  }  "     "  Was  life  itself  worth  living  ?  "  ; 
questions  never  asked  by  those  who  are  living.     Or 
"  What  is  Ufe  in  its  perfection,  and  when  shall  we 
have  it .?  "  ;  a  question  also  not  asked  by  those  who 
live  in  the  morning  of  a  new  aera,  when  the  world  — 
as  in  Elizabeth's  days,  as  in   1789,  as  perhaps  it 
may  be  in  a  few  years  —  is  born  afresh  ;  but  which 
is  asked  continually  in  the   years  when   a  great 
movement  of  Hfe  has  passed  its  culminating  point 
and  has  begun  to  decline.     Again  and  again  the 
world  has  heard  these  questions  ;  in  Cleon's  time, 
and  when  the  Renaissance  had  spent  its  force,  and 
at  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV.,  and  before 
Elizabeth's  reign  had  closed,  and  about   1820  in 
England,  and  of  late  years  also  in    our    society. 
This  is  the  temper  and  the   time   that  Browning 
embodies  in  Cleon,  who  is  the  incarnation  of  a 
culture  which  is  already  feeling  that  life  is  going 

out  of  it. 

Protus,  the  King,  has  written  to  him,  and  the 
poem  is  Cleon's  answer  to  the  King.  Browning 
takes  care,  as  usual,  to  have  his  background  of 
scenery  quite  clear  and  fair.  It  is  a  courtyard  to 
Cleon's  house  in  one  of  the  sprinkled  isles  — 


292  BROWNING 

Lily  on  lily,,  that  o'erlace  the  sea, 

And  laugh  their  pride  when  the  light  wave  lisps  "  Greece." 

I  quote  it;    it  marks  the  man  and  the  age  of 

luxurious  culture. 

They  give  thy  letter  to  me,  even  now ; 

I  read  and  seem  as  if  I  heard  thee  speak. 

The  master  of  thy  galley  still  unlades 

Gift  after  gift ;  they  block  my  court  at  last 

And  pile  themselves  along  its  portico 

Royal  with  sunset,  like  a  thought  of  thee ; 

And  one  white  she-slave  from  the  group  dispersed 

Of  black  and  white  slaves  (like  the  chequer  work 

Pavement,  at  once  my  nation's  work  and  gift, 

Now  covered  with  this  settle-down  of  doves), 

One  lyric  woman,  in  her  crocus  vest 

Woven  of  sea-wools,  with  her  two  white  hands 

Commends  to  me  the  strainer  and  the  cup 

Thy  lip  hath  bettered  ere  it  blesses  mine. 

But  he  is  more  than  luxurious.  He  desires  the 
highest  life,  and  he  praises  the  King  because  he 
has  acknowledged  by  his  gifts  the  joy  that  Art 
gives  to  life ;  and  most  of  all  he  praises  him, 
because  he  too  aspires,  building  a  mighty  tower, 
not  that  men  may  look  at  it,  but  that  he  may 
gaze  from  its  height  on  the  sun,  and  think  what 
higher  he  may  attain.  The  tower  is  the  symbol  of 
the  cry  of  the  King's  soul. 

Then  he  answers  the  King's  letter.  '*  It  is  true, 
O  King,  I  am  poet,  sculptor,  painter,  architect, 
philosopher,  musician  ;  all  arts  are  mine.  Have  I 
done  as  well  as  the  great  men  of  old.-*  No,  but  I 
have  combined  their  excellences  into  one  man,  into 
myself. 

"  I  have  not  chanted  verse  like  Homer,  no  — 
Nor  swept  string  like  Terpander  —  no  —  nor  carved 
And  painted  men  like  Phidias  and  his  friend  : 
I  am  not  great  as  they  are,  point  by  point. 


IMAGINATIVE  REPRESENTATIONS         293 

But  I  have  entered  into  sympathy 
With  these  four,  running  these  into  one  soul, 
Who,  separate,  ignored  each  other's  art. 
Say,  is  it  nothing  that  I  know  them  all  ? 

"  This,  since  the  best  in  each  art  has  already 
been  done,  was  the  only  progress  possible,  and  I 
have  made  it.     It  is  not  unworthy.  King ! 

"  Well,  now  thou  askest,  if  having  done  this,  *  I 
have  not  attained  the  very  crown  of  life ;  if  I  can- 
not now  comfortably  and  fearlessly  meet  death  1 ' 
'I,  Cleon,  leave,'  thou  sayest,  *  my  life  behind  me 
in  my  poems,  my  pictures ;  I  am  immortal  in  my 
work.     What  more  can  life  desire  ? '  " 

It  is  the  question  so  many  are  asking  now,  and 
it  is  the  answer  now  given.  What  better  im- 
mortality than  in  one's  work  left  behind  to  move 
in  men  }  What  more  than  this  can  life  desire } 
But  Cleon  does  not  agree  with  that.  *'  If  thou,  O 
King,  with  the  light  now  in  thee,  hadst  looked  at 
creation  before  man  appeared,  thou  wouldst  have 
said,  '  All  is  perfect  so  far.'  But  questioned  if  any- 
thing more  perfect  in  joy  might  be,  thou  wouldst 
have  said,  '  Yes  ;  a  being  may  be  made,  unlike  these 
who  do  not  know  the  joy  they  have,  who  shall  be  con- 
scious of  himself,  and  know  that  he  is  happy.  Then 
his  life  will  be  satisfied  with  daily  joy.'  "  O  King, 
thou  wouldst  have  answered  foolishly.  The  higher 
the  soul  climbs  in  joy  the  more  it  sees  of  joy,  and 
when  it  sees  the  most,  it  perishes.  Vast  capabilities 
of  joy  open  round  it ;  it  craves  for  all  it  presages ; 
desire  for  more  deepening  with  every  attainment. 
And  then  the  body  intervenes.  Age,  sickness, 
decay,  forbid  attainment.  Life  is  inadequate  to 
joy.      What  have  the  gods  done }      It  cannot  be 


294  BROWNING 

their  malice,  no,  nor  carelessness ;  but  —  to  let  us 
see  oceans  of  joy,  and  only  give  us  power  to  hold 
a  cupful  —  is  that  to  live?  It  is  misery,  and  the 
more  of  joy  my  artist  nature  makes  me  capable  of 
feeling,  the  deeper  my  misery. 

"  But  then,  O  King,  thou  sayest  *  that  I  leave 
behind  me  works  that  will  live ;  works,  too,  which 
paint  the  joy  of  life.'  Yes,  but  to  show  what  the 
joy  of  life  is,  is  not  to  have  it.  If  I  carve  the  young 
Phoebus,  am  I  therefore  young }  I  can  write  odes 
of  the  delight  of  love,  but  grown  too  grey  to  be 
beloved,  can  I  have  its  deUght.'^  That  fair  slave 
of  yours,  and  the  rower  with  the  muscles  all  a 
ripple  on  his  back  who  lowers  the  sail  in  the  bay, 
can  write  no  love  odes  nor  can  they  paint  the  joy 
of  love;  but  they  can  have  it — not  I." 

The  knowledge,  he  thinks,  of  what  joy  is,  of  all 
that  life  can  give,  which  increases  in  the  artist 
as  his  feebleness  increases,  makes  his  fate  the 
deadlier.  What  is  it  to  him  that  his  works  live .'' 
He  does  not  live.  The  hand  of  death  grapples  the 
throat  of  life  at  the  moment  when  he  sees  most 
clearly  its  infinite  possibilities.  Decay  paralyses 
his  hand  when  he  knows  best  how  to  use  his  tools. 
It  is  accomplished  wretchedness. 

I  quote  his  outburst.  It  is  in  the  soul  of  thou- 
sands who  have  no  hope  of  a  life  to  come. 

"  But,"  sayest  thou  —  (and  I  marvel,  I  repeat, 

To  find  thee  trip  on  such  a  mere  word)  "  what 

Thou  writest,  paintest,  stays  ;  that  does  not  die  : 

Sappho  survives,  because  we  sing  her  songs, 

And  ^schylus,  because  we  read  his  plays  !  '^ 

Why,  if  they  live  still,  let  them  come  and  take 

Thy  slave  in  my  despite,  drink  from  thy  cup, 

Speak  in  my  place  !     "  Thou  diest  while  I  survive  ?  "  — 


IMAGINATIVE  REPRESENTATIONS        295 

Say  rather  that  my  fate  is  deadlier  still, 

In  this,  that  every  day  my  sense  of  joy 

Grows  more  acute,  my  soul  (intensified 

By  power  and  insight)  more  enlarged,  more  keen ; 

While  every  day  my  hairs  fall  more  and  more. 

My  hand  shakes,  and  the  heavy  years  increase  — 

The  horror  quickening  still  from  year  to  year, 

The  consummation  coming  past  escape 

When  I  shall  know  most,  and  yet  least  enjoy  — 

When  all  my  works  wherein  I  prove  my  worth. 

Being  present  still  to  mock  me  in  men's  mouths, 

Alive  still,  in  the  praise  of  such  as  thou, 

I,  I  the  feeling,  thinking,  acting  man. 

The  man  who  loved  his  life  so  overmuch, 

Sleep  in  my  urn.     It  is  so  horrible 

I  dare  at  times  imagine  to  my  need 

Some  future  state  revealed  to  us  by  Zeus, 

Unlimited  in  capability 

For  joy,  as  this  is  in  desire  of  joy, 

—  To  seek  which  the  joy-hunger  forces  us  : 

That,  stung  by  straitness  of  our  life,  made  strait 

On  purpose  to  make  prized  the  life  at  large  — 

Freed  by  the  throbbing  impulse  we  call  death. 

We  burst  there  as  the  worm  into  the  fly. 

Who,  while  a  worm  still,  wants  his  wings.     But  no  ! 

Zeus  has  not  yet  revealed  it ;  and  alas. 

He  must  have  done  so,  were  it  possible ! 

This  is  one  only  of  Browning's  statements  of 

what  he  held  to  be  the  fierce  necessity  for  another 

life.     Without   it,   nothing   is    left   for   humanity, 

having    arrived    at    full    culture,    knowledge,    at 

educated  love  of  beauty,  at  finished  morality  and 

unselfishness  —  nothing  in  the  end  but  Cleon's  cry 

—  sorrowful,  somewhat  stern,  yet  gentle — to  Protus, 

Live  long  and  happy,  and  in  that  thought  die. 
Glad  for  what  was.     Farewell. 

But  for  those  who  are  not  Cleon  and  Protus,  not 
kings  in  comfort  or  poets  in  luxury,  who  have  had  no 
gladness,  what  end  —  what  is  to  be  said  of  them.'' 


296  BROWNING 

I  will  not  stay  to  speak  of  A  Death  in  the  Desert^ 
which  is  another  of  these  poems,  because  the  most 
part  of  it  is  concerned  with  questions  of  modern 
theology.  St.  John  awakes  into  clear  consciousness 
just  before  his  death  in  the  cave  where  he  lies 
tended  by  a  few  disciples.  He  foresees  some  of 
the  doubts  of  this  century  and  meets  them  as  he 
can.  The  bulk  of  this  poem,  very  interesting  in 
its  way,  is  Browning's  exposition  of  his  own  behef, 
not  an  imaginative  representation  of  what  St.  John 
actually  would  have  said.  It  does  not  therefore 
come  into  my  subject.  What  does  come  into  it 
is  the  extraordinary  naturalness  and  vitality  of  the 
description  given  by  John's  disciple  of  the  place 
where  they  were,  and  the  fate  of  his  companions. 
This  is  invented  in  Browning's  most  excellent  way. 
It  could  not  be  better  done. 

The  next  poem  is  the  Epistle  of  Karshish,  the 
Arab  Physicia7t,  to  his  master,  concerning  his 
strange  medical  experience.  The  time  is  just  be- 
fore the  last  siege  of  Jerusalem,  and  Karshish, 
journeying  through  Jericho,  and  up  the  pass,  stays 
for  a  few  days  at  Bethany  and  meets  Lazarus. 
His  case  amazes  him,  and  though  he  thinks  his 
interest  in  it  unworthy  of  a  man  of  science  in  com- 
parison with  the  new  herbs  and  new  diseases  he 
has  discovered,  yet  he  is  carried  away  by  it  and 
gives  a  full  account  of  it  to  his  master. 

I  do  not  think  that  Browning  ever  wrote  a  poem 
the  writing  of  which  he  more  enjoyed.  The  crea- 
tion of  Karshish  suited  his  humour  and  his  quaint 
play  with  recondite  knowledge.  He  describes  the 
physician  till  we  see  him  alive  and  thinking,  in 
body  and  soul.     The  creation  of  Lazarus  is  even  a 


IMAGINATIVE  REPRESENTATIONS         297 

higher  example  of  the  imaginative  power  of  Brown- 
ing ;  and  that  it  is  shaped  for  us  through  the  mind 
of  Karshish,  and  in  tune  with  it,  makes  the  im- 
aginative effort  the  more  remarkable.  Then  the 
problem  —  how  to  express  the  condition  of  a  man's 
body  and  soul,  who,  having  for  three  days  accord- 
ing to  the  story  as  Browning  conceives  it  lived 
consciously  in  the  eternal  and  perfect  world,  has 
come  back  to  dwell  in  this  world  —  was  so  diffi- 
cult and  so  involved  in  metaphysical  strangenesses, 
that  it  delighted  him. 

Of  course,  he  carefully  prepares  his  scenery  to 
give  a  true  semblance  to  the  whole.  Karshish 
comes  up  the  flinty  pass  from  Jericho ;  he  is 
attacked  by  thieves  twice  and  beaten,  and  the  wild 
beasts  endanger  his  path ; 

A  black  lynx  snarled  and  pricked  a  tufted  ear, 
Lust  of  my  blood  inflamed  his  yellow  balls  ; 
I  cried  and  threw  my  staff  and  he  was  gone, 

and  then,  at  the  end  of  the  pass,  he  met  Lazarus. 
See  how  vividly  the  scenery  is  realised  — 

I  crossed  a  ridge  of  short,  sharp,  broken  hills 
Like  an  old  lion's  cheek-teeth.     Out  there  came 
A  moon  made  like  a  face  with  certain  spots, 
Multiform,  manifold,  and  menacing  : 
Then  a  wind  rose  behind  me.     So  we  met 
In  this  old  sleepy  town  at  unaware 
The  man  and  L 

And  the  weird  evening,  Karshish  thinks,  had 
something  to  do  with  the  strange  impression  the 
man  has  made  on  him.  Then  we  are  placed  in  the 
dreamy  village  of  Bethany.  We  hear  of  its  elders, 
its  diseases,  its  flowers,  its  herbs,  and  gums,  of  the 
insects  which  may  help  medicine  — 


298  BROWNING 

There  is  a  spider  here 
Weaves  no  web,  watches  on  the  ledge  of  tombs, 
Sprinkled  with  mottles  on  an  ash-grey  back  ; 

and  then,  how  the  countryside  is  all  on  fire  with 
news  of  Vespasian  marching  into  Judaea.  So  we 
have  the  place,  the  village,  the  hills,  the  animals, 
and  the  time,  all  clear,  and  half  of  the  character  of 
Karshish.  The  inner  character  of  the  man  emerges 
as  clearly  when  he  comes  to  deal  with  Lazarus. 
This  is  not  a  case  of  the  body,  he  thinks,  but  of  the 
soul.  "The  Syrian,"  he  tells  his  master,  ''has  had 
catalepsy,  and  a  learned  leech  of  his  nation,  slain 
soon  afterwards,  healed  him  and  brought  him  back 
to  life  after  three  days.  He  says  he  was  dead, 
and  made  alive  again,  but  that  is  his  madness ; 
though  the  man  seems  sane  enough.  At  any  rate, 
his  disease  has  disappeared,  he  is  as  well  as  you 
and  I.  But  the  mind  and  soul  of  the  man,  that  is 
the  strange  matter,  and  in  that  he  is  entirely  unlike 
other  men.  Whatever  he  has  gone  through  has 
rebathed  him,  as  in  clear  water  of  another  life, 
and  penetrated  his  whole  being.  He  views  the 
world  like  a  child,  he  scarcely  listens  to  what  goes 
on  about  him,  yet  he  is  no  fool.  If  one  could 
fancy  a  man  endowed  with  perfect  knowledge  be- 
yond the  fleshly  faculty,  and  while  he  has  this 
heaven  in  him  forced  to  live  on  earth,  such  a  man 
is  he.  His  heart  and  brain  move  there,  his  feet  stay 
here.  He  has  lost  all  sense  of  our  values  of  things. 
Vespasian  besieging  Jerusalem  and  a  mule  passing 
with  gourds  awaken  the  same  interest.  But  speak 
of  some  little  fact,  little  as  we  think,  and  he 
stands  astonished  with  its  prodigious  import.  If 
his  child  sicken  to  death  it  does  not  seem  to  matter 


IMAGIIVATIVE  REPRESENTATIONS         299 

to  him,  but  a  gesture,  a  glance  from  the  child,  starts 
him  into  an  agony  of  fear  and  anger,  as  if  the  child 
were  undoing  the  universe.  He  lives  like  one  be- 
tween two  regions,  one  of  distracting  glory,  of  which 
he  is  conscious  but  must  not  enter  yet ;  and  the 
other  into  which  he  has  been  exiled  back  again  — 
and  between  this  region  where  his  soul  moves  and 
the  earth  where  his  body  is,  there  is  so  little  har- 
mony of  thought  or  feeling  that  he  cannot  under- 
take any  human  activity,  nor  unite  the  demands 
of  the  two  worlds.  He  knows  that  what  ought  to 
be  cannot  be  in  the  world  he  has  returned  to,  so 
that  his  life  is  perplexed ;  but  in  this  incessant 
perplexity  he  falls  back  on  prone  submission  to 
the  heavenly  will.  The  time  will  come  when 
death  will  restore  his  being  to  equilibrium ;  but 
now  he  is  out  of  harmony,  for  the  soul  knows 
more  than  the  body  and  the  body  clouds  the  soul." 

"  I  probed  this  seeming  indifference.  '  Beast,  to 
be  so  still  and  careless  when  Rome  is  at  the  gates 
of  thy  town.'  He  merely  looked  with  his  large 
eyes  at  me.  Yet  the  man  is  not  apathetic,  but 
loves  old  and  young,  the  very  brutes  and  birds  and 
flowers  of  the  field.  His  only  impatience  is  with 
wrongdoing,  but  he  curbs  that  impatience." 

At  last  Karshish  tells,  with  many  apologies  for 
his  foolishness,  the  strangest  thing  of  all.  Lazarus 
thinks  that  his  curer  was  God  Himself  who  came 
and  dwelt  in  flesh  among  those  He  had  made,  and 
went  in  and  out  among  them  healing  and  teaching, 
and  then  died.  "  It  is  strange,  but  why  write  of 
trivial  matters  when  things  of  price  call  every 
moment  for  remark }  Forget  it,  my  master,  par- 
don me  and  farewell." 


300  BROWNING 

Then  comes  the  postscript,  that  impression 
which,  in  spite  of  all  his  knowledge,  is  left  in 
Karshish's  mind  — 

The  very  God  !  think,  Abib  ;  dost  thou  think  ? 
So,  the  All-Great  were  the  All-Loving  too  — 
So,  through  the  thunder  comes  a  human  voice 
Saying :  "  O  heart  I  made,  a  heart  beats  here  ! 
Face,  my  hands  fashioned,  see  it  in  myself ! 
Thou  hast  no  power,  nor  may'st  conceive  of  mine, 
But  love  I  gave  thee,  with  myself  to  love, 
And  thou  must  love  me  who  have  died  for  thee  !"  — 
The  madman  said  He  said  so  ;  it  is  strange. 


CHAPTER  XII 

IMA  GINA  TIVE  REPRESENTA  TIONS 
RENAISSANCE 

THE  Imaginative  Representations  to  be  dis- 
cussed in  this  chapter  are  those  which  belong 
to  the  time  of  the  Renaissance.  We  take  a  great 
leap  when  we  pass  from  Karshish  and  Cleon  to 
Fra  Lippo  Lippi,  from  early  Christian  times  to  the 
early  manhood  of  the  Renaissance.  But  these 
leaps  are  easy  to  a  poet,  and  Browning  is  even 
more  at  his  ease  and  in  his  strength  in  the  fifteenth 
century  than  in  the  first. 

We  have  seen  with  what  force  in  Sordcllo  he 
realised  the  life  and  tumult  of  the  thirteenth  century. 
The  fourteenth  century  does  not  seem  to  have  at- 
tracted him  much,  though  he  frequently  refers  to 
its  work  in  Florence ;  but  when  the  Renaissance 
in  the  fifteenth  century  took  its  turn  with  decision 
towards  a  more  open  freedom  of  life  and  thought, 
abandoning  one  after  another  the  conventions  of 
the  past ;  when  the  moral  limits,  which  the  Church 
still  faintly  insisted  on,  were  more  and  more  with- 
drawn and  finally  blotted  out ;  when,  as  the  century 
passed  intothenext,  the  Church  led  the  revolt  against 
decency,  order,  and  morality ;  when  scepticism  took 
the  place  of  faith,  even  of  duty,  and  criticism  the 

301 


302  BROWNING 

place  of  authority,  then  Browning  became  inter- 
ested, not  of  course  in  the  want  of  faith  and  in  im- 
morality, but  in  the  swift  variety  and  intensity  of 
the  movement  of  intellectual  and  social  Hfe,  and  in 
the  interlacing  changes  of  the  movement.  This  was 
an  enchanting  world  for  him,  and  as  he  was  natu- 
rally most  interested  in  the  arts,  he  represented  the 
way  in  which  the  main  elements  of  the  Renaissance 
appeared  to  him  in  poems  which  were  concerned 
with  music,  poetry,  painting,  and  the  rest  of  the  arts, 
but  chiefly  with  painting.  Of  course,  when  the 
Renaissance  began  to  die  down  into  senile  pride 
and  decay.  Browning,  who  never  ceased  to  choose 
and  claim  companionship  with  vigorous  life,  who 
abhorred  decay  either  in  Nature  or  nations,  in 
societies  or  in  cliques  of  culture,  who  would  have 
preferred  a  blood-red  pirate  to  the  daintiest  of 
decadents  —  did  not  care  for  it,  and  in  only  one 
poem,  touched  with  contemptuous  pity  and  humour, 
represented  its  disease  and  its  disintegrating  ele- 
ments, with  so  much  power,  however,  with  such 
grasping  mastery,  that  it  is  like  a  painting  by 
Velasquez.  Ruskin  said  justly  that  the  Bishop 
orders  his  Tomb  at  St.  P raxed' s  Chii7'ch  concentrated 
into  a  few  lines  all  the  evil  elements  of  the 
Renaissance.  But  this  want  of  care  for  the  decay- 
ing Renaissance  was  contrasted  by  the  extreme 
pleasure  with  which  he  treated  its  early  manhood 
in  Fra  Lippo  Lippi. 

The  Renaissance  had  a  life  and  seasons,  like 
those  of  a  human  being.  It  went  through  its 
childhood  and  youth  like  a  boy  of  genius  under 
the  care  of  parents  from  whose  opinions  and  mode 
of  life  he  is  sure  to  sever  himself  in  the  end ;  but 


IMAGmATIVE  REPRESENTATIONS         303 

who,  having  made  a  deep  impression  on  his  nature, 
retain  power  over,  and  give  direction  to,  his  first 
efforts  at  creation.  The  first  art  of  the  Re- 
naissance, awakened  by  the  discovery  of  the  classic 
remnants,  retained  a  great  deal  of  the  faith  and 
superstition,  the  philosophy,  theology,  and  childlike 
na'lvet^  of  the  middle  ages.  Its  painting  and 
sculpture,  but  chiefly  the  first  of  these,  gave  them- 
selves chiefly  to  the  representation  of  the  soul 
upon  the  face,  and  of  the  untutored  and  unconscious 
movements  of  the  body  under  the  influence  of 
religious  passion ;  that  is,  such  movements  as 
expressed  devotion,  fervent  love  of  Christ,  horror 
of  sin,  were  chosen,  and  harmonised  with  the  ex- 
pression of  the  face.  Painting  dedicated  its  work 
to  the  representation  of  the  heavenly  Hfe,  either  on 
earth  in  the  story  of  the  gospels  and  in  the  lives  of 
the  saints,  or  in  its  glory  in  the  circles  of  heaven. 
Then,  too,  it  represented  the  thought,  philosophy, 
and  knowledge  of  its  own  time  and  of  the  past  in 
symbolic  series  of  quiet  figures,  in  symbolic  pictures 
of  the  struggle  of  good  with  evil,  of  the  Church 
with  the  world,  of  the  virtues  with  their  opposites. 
Naturally,  then,  the  expression  on  the  face  of 
secular  passions,  the  movement  of  figures  in  war 
and  trade  and  social  Hfe  and  the  whole  vast  field 
of  human  life  in  the  ordinary  world,  were  neglected 
as  unworthy  of  representation  ;  and  the  free,  full 
life  of  the  body,  its  beauty,  power,  and  charm,  the 
objects  which  pleased  its  senses,  the  frank  repre- 
sentation of  its  movement  under  the  influence  of  the 
natural  as  contrasted  with  the  spiritual  passions, 
were  looked  upon  with  religious  dismay.  Such, 
but  less  in  sculpture  than  in  painting,  was  the  art 


304  BROWNING 

of  the  Renaissance  in  its  childhood  and  youth,  and 
Browning  has  scarcely  touched  that  time.  He  had 
no  sympathy  with  a  neglect  of  the  body,  a  con- 
tempt of  the  senses  or  of  the  beauty  they  perceived. 
He  claimed  the  physical  as  well  as  the  intellectual 
and  spiritual  life  of  man  as  by  origin  and  of  right 
divine.  When,  then,  in  harmony  with  a  great 
change  in  social  and  literary  life,  the  art  of  the 
Renaissance  began  to  turn,  in  its  early  manhood, 
from  the  representation  of  the  soul  to  the  repre- 
sentation of  the  body  in  natural  movement  and 
beauty  ;  from  the  representation  of  saints,  angels, 
and  virtues  to  the  representation  of  actual  men  and 
women  in  the  streets  and  rooms  of  Florence  ;  from 
symbolism  to  reality  —  Browning  thought,  "  This 
suits  me ;  this  is  what  I  love ;  I  will  put  this 
mighty  change  into  a  poem."  And  he  wrote  Fra 
Lippo  Lippi. 

As  long  as  this  vivid  representation  of  actual 
human  life  lasted,  the  art  of  the  Renaissance  was 
active,  original,  and  interesting ;  and  as  it  moved 
on,  developing  into  higher  and  finer  forms,  and 
producing  continually  new  varieties  in  its  develop- 
ment, it  reached  its  strong  and  eager  manhood. 
In  its  art  then,  as  well  as  in  other  matters,  the 
Renaissance  completed  its  new  and  clear  theory 
of  life ;  it  remade  the  grounds  of  life,  of  its  action 
and  passion  ;  and  it  reconstituted  its  aims.  Brown- 
ing loved  this  summer  time  of  the  Renaissance, 
which  began  with  the  midst  of  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury. But  he  loved  its  beginnings  even  more 
than  its  fulness.  That  was  characteristic.  I  have 
said  that  even  when  he  was  eighty  years  old,  his 
keenest  sympathies  were  with  spring  rather  than 


IMAGINATIVE  REPRESENTATIONS         305 

summer,  with  those  times  of  vital  change  when 
fresh  excitements  disturbed  the  world,  when  its  eyes 
were  smiling  with  hope,  and  its  feet  eager  with 
the  joy  of  pursuit.  He  rejoiced  to  analyse  and 
embody  a  period  which  was  shaking  off  the  past, 
living  intensely  in  the  present,  and  prophesying  the 
future.  It  charms  us,  as  we  read  him,  to  see  his 
intellect  and  his  soul  like  two  hunting  dogs,  and  with 
all  their  eagerness,  questing,  roving,  quartering, 
with  the  greatest  joy  and  in  incessant  movement, 
over  a  time  like  this,  where  so  many  diverse,  clash- 
ing, and  productive  elements  mingled  themselves 
into  an  enchanting  confusion  and  glory  of  life. 
Out  of  that  pleasure  of  hunting  in  a  morning-tide 
of  humanity,  was  born  Fra  Lippo  Lippi;  and  there 
is  scarcely  an  element  of  the  time,  except  the  politi- 
cal elements,  which  it  does  not  represent;  not  dwelt 
on,  but  touched  for  the  moment  and  left;  uncon- 
sciously produced  as  two  men  of  the  time  would 
produce  them  in  conversation.  The  poem  seems  as 
easy  as  a  chat  in  Pall  Mall  last  night  between  some 
intelligent  men,  which,  read  two  hundred  years  hence, 
would  inform  the  reader  of  the  trend  of  thought  and 
feeling  in  this  present  day.  But  in  reality  to  do  this 
kind  of  thing  well  is  to  do  a  very  difficult  thing. 
It  needs  a  full  knowledge,  a  full  imagination,  and  a 
masterly  execution.  Yet  when  we  read  the  poem, 
it  seems  as  natural  as  the  breaking  out  of  blossoms. 
This  is  that  divine  thing,  the  ease  of  genius. 

The  scenery  of  the  poem  is  as  usual  clear.  We 
are  in  fifteenth-century  Florence  at  night.  There 
is  no  set  description,  but  the  slight  touches  are 
enough  to  make  us  see  the  silent  lonely  streets,  the 
churches,  the  high  walls  of  the  monastic  gardens, 


3o6  BROWNING 

the  fortress-palaces.  The  sound  of  the  fountains  is 
in  our  ears  ;  the  Httle  crowds  of  revelling  men  and 
girls  appear  and  disappear  like  ghosts  ;  the  surly- 
watch  with  their  weapons  and  torches  bustle  round 
the  corner.  Nor  does  Browning  neglect  to  paint  by 
slight  enlivening  touches,  introduced  into  Lippo 
Lippi's  account  of  himself  as  a  starving  boy,  the 
aspect  by  day  and  the  character  of  the  Florence  of 
the  fifteenth  century.  This  painting  of  his,  slight 
as  it  is,  is  more  alive  than  all  the  elaborate  descrip- 
tions in  Romola. 

As  to  the  poem  itself,  Browning  plunges  at  once 
into  his  matter ;  no  long  approaches,  no  elaborate 
porches  belong  to  his  work.  The  man  and  his 
character  are  before  us  in  a  moment  — 

I  am  poor  brother  Lippo,  by  your  leave  ! 

You  need  not  clap  your  torches  to  my  face. 

Zooks,  what's  to  blame  ?     You  think  you  see  a  monk  ! 

What,  'tis  past  midnight,  and  you  go  the  rounds, 

And  here  you  catch  me  at  an  alley's  end 

Where  sportive  ladies  leave  their  doors  ajar? 

For  three  weeks  he  has  painted  saints,  and  saints, 
and  saints  again,  for  Cosimo  in  the  Medici  Palace ; 
but  now  the  time  of  blossoms  has  come.  Florence 
is  now  awake  at  nights  ;  the  secret  of  the  spring 
moves  in  his  blood ;  the  man  leaps  up,  the  monk 
retires. 

Ouf  !  I  leaned  out  of  window  for  fresh  air. 

There  came  a  hurry  of  feet  and  little  feet, 

A  sweep  of  lute-strings,  laughs,  and  whifts  of  song. 

Flower  o*  the  broorn, 

Take  away  love,  and  our  earth  is  a  tomb  ! 

Flower  of  the  quince, 

I  let  Lisa  go,  and  what  good  in  life  since  f 

Flower  of  the  thyme  —  and  so  on.     Round  they  went. 


IMAGINATIVE  REPRESENTATIONS         307 

Scarce  had  they  turned  the  corner  when  a  titter, 

Like  the  skipping  of  rabbits  by  moonlight,  —  three  slim  shapes, 

And  a  face  that  looked  up  .  .   .  zooks,  sir,  flesh  and  blood, 

Thaf  s  all  I'm  made  of !     Into  shreds  it  went. 

Curtain  and  counterpane  and  coverlet. 

All  the  bed-furniture  — a  dozen  knots, 

There  was  a  ladder  !     Down  I  let  myself, 

Hands  and  feet,  scrambling  somehow,  and  so  dropped, 

And  after  them.     I  came  up  with  the  fun 

Hard  by  St.  Laurence,  hail  fellow,  well  met, — 

Flower  0'  the  rose, 

If  Pve  been  merry,  what  matter  who  knows  ? 

It  is  a  picture,  not  only  of  the  man,  but  of  the 
time  and  its  temper,  when  religion  and  morality,  as 
well  as  that  simplicity  of  life  which  Dante  de- 
scribes, had  lost  their  ancient  power  over  society  in 
Florence ;  when  the  claim  to  give  to  human  nature 
all  it  desired  had  stolen  into  the  Church  itself. 
Even  in  the  monasteries,  the  long  seclusion  from 
natural  human  life  had  produced  a  reaction,  which 
soon,  indulging  itself  as  Fra  Lippo  Lippi  did,  ran 
into  an  extremity  of  licence.  Nevertheless,  some- 
thing of  the  old  religious  life  lasted  at  the  time  of 
this  poem.  It  stretched  one  hand  back  to  the  piety 
of  the  past,  and  retained,  though  faith  and  devotion 
had  left  them,  its  observances  and  conventions ;  so 
that,  at  first,  when  Lippo  was  painting,  the  new 
only  peeped  out  of  the  old,  like  the  saucy  face  of 
a  nymph  from  the  ilexes  of  a  sacred  grove.  This 
is  the  historical  moment  Browning  illustrates. 
Lippo  Lippi  was  forced  to  paint  the  worn  religious 
subjects  :  Jerome  knocking  his  breast,  the  choirs  of 
angels  and  martyrs,  the  scenes  of  the  Gospel ;  but 
out  of  all  he  did  the  eager  modern  life  began  to 
glance !  Natural,  quaint,  original  faces  and  atti- 
tudes appeared ;  the  angels  smiled  Hke  Florentine 


3o8  BROWNING 

women ;  the  saints  wore  the  air  of  Bohemians. 
There  is  a  picture  by  Lippo  Lippi  in  the  National 
Gallery  of  some  nine  of  them  sitting  on  a  bench 
under  a  hedge  of  roses,  and  it  is  no  paradox  to  say 
that  they  might  fairly  represent  the  Florentines 
who  tell  the  tales  of  the  Decameron. 

The  transition  as  it  appeared  in  art  is  drawn  in 
this  poem.  Lippo  Lippi  became  a  monk  by  chance  ; 
it  was  not  his  vocation.  A  starving  boy,  he  roamed 
the  streets  of  Florence ;  and  the  widespread  intelli- 
gence of  the  city  is  marked  by  Browning's  account 
of  the  way  in  which  the  boy  observed  all  the  life  of 
the  streets  for  eight  years.  Then  the  coming  change 
of  the  aims  of  art  is  indicated  by  the  way  in  which, 
when  he  was  allowed  to  paint,  he  covered  the  walls 
of  the  Carmine,  not  with  saints,  virgins,  and  angels, 
but  with  the  daily  life  of  the  streets  —  the  boy 
patting  the  dog,  the  murderer  taking  refuge  at  the 
altar,  the  white  wrath  of  the  avenger  coming  up 
the  aisle,  the  girl  going  to  market,  the  crowd  round 
the  stalls  in  the  market,  the  monks,  white,  grey,  and 
black  —  things  as  they  were,  as  like  as  two  peas  to 
the  reality ;  flesh  and  blood  now  painted,  not  skin 
and  bone ;  not  the  expression  on  the  face  alone,  but 
the  whole  body  in  speaking  movement ;  nothing 
conventional,  nothing  imitative  of  old  models,  but 
actual  life  as  it  lay  before  the  painter's  eyes. 
Into  this  fresh  aera  of  art  Lippo  Lippi  led  the 
way  with  the  joy  of  youth.  But  he  was  too 
soon.  The  Prior,  all  the  representatives  of  the 
conservative  elements  in  the  convent,  were  sorely 
troubled.  '*  Why,  this  will  never  do  :  faces,  arms, 
legs,  and  bodies  like  the  true ;  life  as  it  is ;  Nature 
as  she  is ;   quite  impossible."     And  Browning,  in 


IMAGIN-ATIVE  REPRESENTATIONS        309 

Lippo's  defence  of  himself,  paints  the  conflict  of 
the  past  with  the  coming  art  in  a  passage  too  long 
to  quote,  too  admirable  to  shorten. 

The  new  art  conquered  the  old.  The  whole  Hfe 
of  Florence  was  soon  painted  as  it  was :  the  face 
of  the  town,  the  streets,  the  churches,  the  towers, 
the  winding  river,  the  mountains  round  about  it; 
the  country,  the  fields  and  hills  and  hamlets,  the 
peasants  at  work,  ploughing,  sowing,  and  gathering 
fruit,  the  cattle  feeding,  the  birds  among  the  trees 
and  in  the  sky ;  nobles  and  rich  burghers  hunting, 
hawking;  the  magistrates,  the  citizens,  the  street- 
boys,  the  fine  ladies,  the  tradesmen's  wives,  the 
heads  of  the  guilds ;  the  women  visiting  their 
friends ;  the  interior  of  the  houses.  We  may  see 
this  art  of  human  hfe  in  the  apse  of  Santa  Maria 
Novella,  painted  by  the  hand  of  Ghirlandajo :  in 
the  Riccardi  Palace,  painted  by  Benozzo  Gozzoli ; 
in  more  than  half  the  pictures  of  the  painters  who 
succeeded  Fra  Lippo  Lippi.  Only,  so  much  of 
the  old  clings  that  all  this  actual  Florentine  life  is 
painted  into  the  ancient  religious  subjects  —  the 
life  of  the  Baptist  and  the  Virgin,  the  embassage 
of  the  Wise  Men,  the  life  of  Christ,  the  legends  of 
the  saints,  the  lives  of  the  virgins  and  martyrs,  Jeru- 
salem and  its  life  painted  as  if  it  were  Florence 
and  its  life  —  all  the  spiritual  religion  gone  out  of 
it,  it  is  true,  but  yet,  another  kind  of  religion  bud- 
ding in  it  —  the  religion,  not  of  the  monastery,  but 
of  daily  common  life. 

the  world 
—  The  beauty  and  the  wonder  and  the  power, 
The  shapes  of  things,  their  colours,  lights,  and  shades, 
Changes,  surprises  —  and  God  made  it  all ! 


3IO  BROWNING 

Who  paints  these  things  as  if  they  were  alive,  and 
loves  them  while  he  paints,  paints  the  garment  of 
God ;  and  men  not  only  understand  their  own  life 
better  because  they  see,  through  the  painting,  what 
they  did  not  see  before ;  but  also  the  movement  of 
God's  spirit  in  the  beauty  of  the  world  and  in  the 
life  of  men.  Art  interprets  to  man  all  that  is,  and 
God  in  it. 

Oh,  oh, 
It  makes  me  mad  to  think  what  men  shall  do 
And  we  in  our  graves !     This  world's  no  blot  for  us, 
No  blank  ;  it  means  intensely,  and  means  good  : 
To  find  its  meaning  is  my  meat  and  drink. 

He  could  not  do  it;  the  time  was  not  ripe 
enough.  But  he  began  it.  And  the  spirit  of  its 
coming  breaks  out  in  all  he  did. 

We  take  a  leap  of  more  than  half  a  century  when 
we  pass  from  Fra  Lippo  Lippi  to  Andrea  del  Sarto. 
That  advance  in  art  to  which  Lippo  Lippi  looked 
forward  with  a  kind  of  rage  at  his  own  powerless- 
ness  had  been  made.  In  its  making,  the  art  of  the 
Renaissance  had  painted  men  and  women,  both 
body  and  soul,  in  every  kind  of  life,  both  of  war  and 
peace ;  and  better  than  they  had  ever  been  painted 
before.  Having  fulfilled  that,  the  painters  asked, 
"  What  more  .'*  What  new  thing  shall  we  do .'' 
What  new  aim  shall  we  pursue.'*"  And  there 
arose  among  them  a  desire  to  paint  all  that  was 
paintable,  and  especially  the  human  body,  with 
scientific  perfection.  '*  In  our  desire  to  paint  the 
whole  of  life,  we  have  produced  so  much  that  we 
were  forced  to  paint  carelessly  or  inaccurately. 
In  our  desire  to  be  original,  we  have  neglected 
technique.     In  our  desire   to    paint   the   passions 


IMAGINATIVE  REPRESENTATIONS         311 

on  the  face  and  in  the  movements  of  men,  we  have 
lost  the  calm  and  harmony  of  the  ancient  classic 
work,  which  made  its  ethical  impression  of  the 
perfect  balance  of  the  divine  nature  by  the  ideal 
arrangement,  in  accord  with  a  finished  science,  of 
the  various  members  of  the  body  to  form  a  finished 
whole.  Let  the  face  no  longer  then  try  to  represent 
the  individual  soul.  One  type  of  face  for  each 
class  of  art-representation  is  enough.  Let  our 
effort  be  to  represent  beauty  by  the  perfect  draw- 
ing of  the  body  in  repose  and  in  action,  and  by 
chosen  attitudes  and  types.  Let  our  composition 
follow  certain  guiding  lines  and  rules,  in  accordance 
with  whose  harmonies  all  pictures  shall  be  made. 
We  will  follow  the  Greek ;  compose  as  he  did,  and 
by  his  principles ;  and  for  that  purpose  make  a 
scientific  study  of  the  body  of  man ;  observing  in 
all  painting,  sculpture,  and  architecture  the  general 
forms  and  proportions  that  ancient  art,  after  many 
experiments,  selected  as  the  best.  And,  to  match 
that,  we  must  have  perfect  drawing  in  all  we 
do." 

This  great  change,  which,  as  art's  adulterous 
connection  with  science  deepened,  led  to  such  un- 
happy results,  Browning  represents,  when  its  aim 
had  been  reached,  in  his  poem,  Andrea  del  Sarto  ; 
and  he  tells  us  —  through  Andrea's  talk  with  his 
wife  Lucretia  —  what  he  thought  of  it ;  and  what 
Andrea  himself,  whose  broken  life  may  have  opened 
his  eyes  to  the  truth  of  things,  may  himself  have 
thought  of  it.  On  that  element  in  the  poem  I  have 
already  dwelt,  and  shall  only  touch  on  the  scenery 
and  tragedy,  of  the  piece : 
^    We  sit  with  Andrea,  looking  out  to  Fiesole. 


312  BROWNING 

sober,  pleasant  Fiesole. 
There's  the  bell  clinking  from  the  chapel  top ; 
That  length  of  convent-wall  across  the  way 
Holds  the  trees  safer,  huddled  more  inside ; 
The  last  monk  leaves  the  garden  ;  days  decrease, 
And  autumn  grows,  autumn  in  everything. 

As  the  poem  goes  on,  the  night  falls,  falls  with  the 
deepening  of  the  painter's  depression  ;  the  owls  cry 
from  the  hill,  Florence  wears  the  grey  hue  of  the 
heart  of  Andrea  ;  and  Browning  weaves  the  autumn 
and  the  night  into  the  tragedy  of  the  painter's  life. 

That  tragedy  was  pitiful.  Andrea  del  Sarto  was 
a  faultless  painter  and  a  weak  character;  and  it 
fell  to  his  lot  to  love  with  passion  a  faithless 
woman.  His  natural  weakness  was  doubled  by 
the  weakness  engendered  by  unconquerable  pas- 
sion ;  and  he  ruined  his  life,  his  art,  and  his  honour, 
to  please  his  wife.  He  wearied  her,  as  women 
are  wearied,  by  passion  unaccompanied  by  power ; 
and  she  endured  him  only  while  he  could  give  her 
money  and  pleasures.  She  despised  him  for  that 
endurance,  and  all  the  more  that  he  knew  she  was 
guilty,  but  said  nothing  lest  she  should  leave  him. 
Browning  fills  his  main  subject  —  his  theory  of  the 
true  aim  of  art  —  with  this  tragedy  ;  and  his  treat- 
ment of  it  is  a  fine  example  of  his  passionate  human- 
ity ;  and  the  passion  of  it  is  knitted  up  with  close 
reasoning  and  illuminated  by  his  intellectual  play. 

It  is  worth  a  reader's  while  to  read,  along  with 
this  poem,  Alfred  de  Musset's  short  play,  Ajidre 
del  Sarto.  The  tragedy  of  the  situation  is  deep- 
ened by  the  French  poet,  and  the  end  is  told. 
Unlike  Browning,  only  a  few  lines  sketch  the  time, 
its  temper,  and  its  art.  It  is  the  depth  of  the 
tragedy  which  De  Musset  paints,  and  that  alone; 


IMAGIiVATIVE  REPRESENTATIONS 


I  313 


and  in  order  to  deepen  it,  Andrea  is  made  a  much 
nobler  character  than  he  is  in  Browning's  poem. 
The  betrayal  is  also  made  more  complete,  more 
overwhelming.  Lucretia  is  false  to  Andrea  with 
his  favourite  pupil,  with  Cordiani,  to  whom  he  had 
given  all  he  had,  whom  he  loved  almost  as  much 
as  he  loved  his  wife.  Terrible,  inevitable  Fate 
broods  over  this  brief  and  masterly  little  play. 

The  next  of  these  imaginative  representations 
of  the  Renaissance  is,  The  Bishop  orders  his  Tomb 
at  St.  Praxed's  Church.  We  are  placed  in  the 
full  decadence  of  the  Renaissance.  Its  total  loss 
of  religion,  even  in  the  Church;  its  immorality  — 
the  bishop's  death-bed  is  surrounded  by  his  natural 
sons  and  the  wealth  he  leaves  has  been  purchased 
by  every  kind  of  iniquity  —  its  pride  of  life ;  its 
luxury;  its  semi-Paganism  ;  its  imitative  classicism; 
its  inconsistency;  its  love  of  jewels,  and  fine  stones, 
and  rich  marbles ;  its  jealousy  and  envy ;  its  plea- 
sure in  the  adornment  of  death ;  its  dehght  in  the 
outsides  of  things,  in  mere  workmanship ;  its  loss 
of  originality ;  its  love  of  scholarship  for  scholar- 
ship's sake  alone ;  its  contempt  of  the  common 
people ;  its  exhaustion  —  are  one  and  all  revealed 
or  suggested  in  this  astonishing  poem. 

These  are  the  three  greater  poems  dedicated  to' 
this  period  ;  but  there  are  some  minor  poems  which 
represent  different  phases  of  its  life.  One  of  these 
is  the  Pictor  Ignotiis.  There  must  have  been  many 
men,  during  the  vital  time  of  the  Renaissance,  who, 
born,  as  it  were,  into  the  art-ability  of  the  period, 
reached  without  trouble  a  certain  level  in  painting, 
but  who  had  no  genius,  who  could  not  create ;  or 
who,  if  they  had  some  touch  of  genius,  had  no 


314  BROWNING 

boldness  to  strike  it  into  fresh  forms  of  beauty ; 
shy,  retiring  men,  to  whom  the  criticism  of  the 
world  was  a  pain  they  knew  they  could  not  bear. 
These  men  are  common  at  a  period  when  life  is 
racing  rapidly  through  the  veins  of  a  vivid  city  like 
Florence.  The  general  intensity  of  the  life  Hfts 
them  to  a  height  they  would  never  reach  in  a  dull 
and  sleepy  age.  The  life  they  have  is  not  their 
own,  but  the  life  of  the  whole  town.  And  this 
keen  perception  of  life  outside  of  them  persuades 
them  that  they  can  do  all  that  men  of  real  power 
can  do.  In  reality,  they  can  do  nothing  and  make 
nothing  worth  a  people's  honour.  Browning,  who 
himself  was  compact  of  boldness,  who  loved  ex- 
periment in  what  was  new,  and  who  shaped  what 
he  conceived  without  caring  for  criticism,  felt  for 
these  men,  of  whom  he  must  have  met  many ;  and, 
asking  himself  "  How  they  would  think  ;  what  they 
would  do  ;  and  how  life  would  seem  to  them,"  wrote 
this  poem.  In  what  way  will  poor  human  nature 
excuse  itself  for  failure .''  How  will  the  weakness 
in  the  man  try  to  prove  that  it  was  power  .-*  How, 
having  lost  the  joy  of  Hfe,  will  he  attempt  to  show 
that  his  loss  is  gain,  his  failure  a  success ;  and,  be- 
ing rejected  of  the  world,  approve  himself  within  } 

This  was  a  subject  to  please  Browning;  meat 
such  as  his  soul  loved :  a  nice,  involved,  Daedalian, 
labyrinthine  sort  of  thing,  a  mixture  of  real  senti- 
ment and  self-deceit;  and  he  surrounded  it  with 
his  pity  for  its  human  weakness. 

"  I  could  have  painted  any  picture  that  I  pleased," 
cries  this  painter ;  *'  represented  on  the  face  any 
passion,  any  virtue."  If  he  could  he  would  have 
done  it,  or  tried  it.     Genius  cannot  hold  itself  in. 


IMAGINATIVE  REPRESENTATIONS        315 

*'  I  have  dreamed  of  sending  forth  some  picture 
which  should  enchant  the  world  (and  he  alludes  to 
Cimabue's  picture)  — 

"  Bound  for  some  great  state, 
Or  glad  aspiring  little  burgh,  it  went  — 
Flowers  cast  upon  the  car  which  bore  the  freight, 
Through  old  streets  named  afresh  from  the  event. 

"That  would  have  been,  had  I  willed  it.  But 
mixed  with  the  praisers  there  would  have  been  cold, 
critical  faces;  judges  who  would  press  on  me  and 
mock.  And  I  —  I  could  not  bear  it."  Alas  !  had 
he  had  genius,  no  fear  would  have  stayed  his  hand, 
no  judgment  of  the  world  delayed  his  work.  What 
stays  a  river  breaking  from  its  fountain-head } 

So  he  sank  back,  saying  the  world  was  not 
worthy  of  his  labours.  ''  What  t  Expose  my 
noble  work  (things  he  had  conceived  but  not  done) 
to  the  prate  and  pettiness  of  the  common  buyers 
who  hang  it  on  their  walls!  No,  I  will  rather 
paint  the  same  monotonous  round  of  Virgin,  Child, 
and  Saints  in  the  quiet  church,  in  the  sanctuary's 
gloom.  No  merchant  then  will  traffic  in  my  heart.  My 
pictures  will  moulder  and  die.  Let  them  die.  I  have 
not  vulgarised  myself  or  them. ' '  Brilhant  and  nobly 
wrought  as  the  first  three  poems  are  of  which  I  have 
written,  this  quiet  Httle  piece  needed  and  received  a 
finer  workmanship,  and  was  more  difficult  than  they. 

Then  there  is  How  it  strikes  a  Cojitemporary  — 
the  story  of  the  gossip  of  a  Spanish  town  about  a 
poor  poet,  who,  because  he  wanders  everywhere 
about  the  streets  observing  all  things,  is  mistaken 
for  a  spy  of  the  King.  The  long  pages  he  writes 
are  said  to  be  letters  to  the  King ;  the  misfortunes 


31 6  BROWNING 

of  this  or  that  man  are  caused  by  his  information. 
The  world  thinks  him  a  wonder  of  cleverness ;  he  is 
but  an  inferior  poet.  It  imagines  that  he  lives  in 
Assyrian  luxury ;  he  lives  and  dies  in  a  naked 
garret.  This  imaginative  representation  might  be 
of  any  time  in  a  provincial  town  of  an  ignorant 
country  like  Spain.  It  is  a  slight  study  of  what 
superstitious  imagination  and  gossip  will  work  up 
round  any  man  whose  nature  and  manners,  like 
those  of  a  poet,  isolate  him  from  the  common  herd. 
Force  is  added  to  this  study  by  its  scenery.  The 
Moorish  windows,  the  shops,  the  gorgeous  magis- 
trates pacing  down  the  promenade,  are  touched  in 
with  a  flying  pencil ;  and  then,  moving  through  the 
crowd,  the  lean,  black-coated  figure,  with  his  cane 
and  dog  and  his  peaked  hat,  clear  flint  eyes  and, 
beaked  nose,  is  seen,  as  if  alive,  in  the  vivid  sun- 
shine of  Valladolid.  But  what  Browning  wished 
most  to  describe  in  this  poem  was  one  of  the  first 
marks  of  a  poet,  even  of  a  poor  one  like  this  gentle- 
man—  the  power  of  seeing  and  observing  every- 
thing. Nothing  was  too  small,  nothing  uninteresting 
in  this  man's  eyes.     His  very  hat  was  scrutinising. 

He  stood  and  watched  the  cobbler  at  his  trade, 
The  man  who  slices  lemons  into  drink, 
The  coffee-roaster's  brazier,  and  the  boys 
That  volunteer  to  help  him  turn  its  winch. 
He  glanced  o'er  books  on  stalls  with  half  an  eye, 
And  fly-leaf  ballads  on  the  vendor's  string, 
And  broad-edged  bold-print  posters  by  the  wall. 
He  took  such  cognisance  of  man  and  things, 
If  any  beat  a  horse  you  felt  he  saw ; 
If  any  cursed  a  woman,  he  took  note ; 
Yet  stared  at  nobody,  you  stared  at  him, 
And  found,  less  to  your  pleasure  than  surprise, 
He  seemed  to  know  you  and  expect  as  much. 


IMAGINATIVE  REPRESENTATIONS         317 

That  is  the  artist's  way.  It  was  Browning's 
way.  He  is  describing  himself.  In  that  fashion 
he  roamed  through  Venice  or  Florence,  stopping 
every  moment,  attracted  by  the  smallest  thing, 
finding  a  poem  in  everything,  lost  in  himself  yet 
seeing  all  that  surrounded  him,  isolated  in  thinking, 
different  from  and  yet  like  the  rest  of  the  world. 

Another  poem  —  My  Last  Duchess  —  must  be 
mentioned.  It  is  plainly  placed  in  the  midst  of  the 
period  of  the  Renaissance  by  the  word  Ferrara, 
which  is  added  to  its  title.  But  it  is  rather  a 
picture  of  two  temperaments  which  may  exist  in 
any  cultivated  society,  and  at  any  modern  time. 
There  are  numbers  of  such  men  as  the  Duke  and 
such  women  as  the  Duchess  in  our  midst.  Both 
are,  however,  drawn  with  mastery.  Browning  has 
rarely  done  his  work  with  more  insight,  with 
greater  keenness  of  portraiture,  with  happier  brevity 
and  selection.  As  in  the  Flight  of  the  DiicJiess, 
untoward  fate  has  bound  together  two  temperaments 
sure  to  clash  with  each  other  —  and  no  gipsy  comes 
to  deliver  the  woman  in  this  case.  The  man's 
nature  kills  her.  It  happens  every  day.  The 
Renaissance  society  may  have  built  up  more  men  of 
this  type  than  ours,  but  they  are  not  peculiar  to  it. 

Germany,  not  Italy,  is,  I  think,  the  country  in 
which  Browning  intended  to  place  two  other  poems 
which  belong  to  the  time  of  the  Renaissance  — 
Johcnines  Agricola  in  Mcditatio7i  and  A  Gramnia- 
rians  Ftineral.  Their  note  is  as  different  from  that 
of  the  Italian  poems  as  the  national  temper  of  Ger- 
many is  from  that  of  Italy.  They  have  no  sense  of 
beauty  for  beauty's  sake  alone.  Their  atmosphere 
is  not  soft  or  gay  but  somewhat  stern.    The  logical 


3i8  BROWNING 

arrangement  of  them  is  less  one  of  feeling  than  of 
thought.  There  is  a  stronger  manhood  in  them,  a 
grimmer  view  of  life.  The  sense  of  duty  to  God 
and  Man,  but  little  represented  in  the  Italian  poems 
of  the  Renaissance,  does  exist  in  these  two  German 
poems.  Moreover,  there  is  in  them  a  full  repre- 
sentation of  aspiration  to  the  world  beyond.  But 
the  ItaHan  Renaissance  lived  for  the  earth  alone,  and 
its  loveliness  ;  too  close  to  earth  to  care  for  heaven. 

It  pleased  Browning  to  throw  himself  fully  into 
the  soul  of  Johannes  Agricola ;  and  he  does  it  with 
so  much  personal  fervour  that  it  seems  as  if,  in  one  of 
his  incarnations,  he  had  been  the  man,  and,  for  the 
moment  of  his  writing,  was  dominated  by  him.  The 
mystic-passion  fills  the  poetry  with  keen  and  dazzling 
light,  and  it  is  worth  while,  from  this  point  of  view, 
to  compare  the  poem  with  Tennyson's  Sir  GalaJiady 
and  on  another  side,  with  St.  Simeo7t  Stylites. 

Johannes  Agricola  was  one  of  the  products  of  the 
reforming  spirit  of  the  sixteenth  century  in  Germany, 
one  of  its  wild  extremes.  He  believes  that  God 
had  chosen  him  among  a  few  to  be  his  for  ever  and 
for  his  own  glory  from  the  foundation  of  the  world. 
He  did  not  say  that  all  sin  was  permitted  to  the 
saints,  that  what  the  flesh  did  was  no  matter,  like 
those  wild  fanatics,  one  of  whom  Scott  draws  in 
Woodstock ;  but  he  did  say,  that  if  he  sinned  it 
made  no  matter  to  his  election  by  God.  Nay,  the 
immanence  of  God  in  him  turned  the  poison  to 
health,  the  filth  to  jewels.  Goodness  and  badness 
make  no  matter  ;  God's  choice  is  all.  The  martyr 
for  truth,  the  righteous  man  whose  life  has  saved 
the  world,  but  who  is  not  elected,  is  damned  for 
ever  in  burning  hell.     "  I  am  eternally  chosen  ;  for 


IMAGINATIVE  REPRESENTATIONS         319 

that  I  praise  God.  I  do  not  understand  it.  If  I 
did,  could  I  praise  Him  ?  But  I  know  my  settled 
place  in  the  divine  decrees."  I  quote  the  begin- 
ning. It  is  pregnant  with  superb  spiritual  audacity, 
and  kindled  with  imaginative  pride. 

There's  heaven  above,  and  night  by  night 

I  look  right  through  its  gorgeous  roof; 
No  suns  and  moons  though  e'er  so  bright 

Avail  to  stop  me  ;  splendour-proof 

Keep  the  broods  of  stars  aloof: 
For  I  intend  to  get  to  God, 

For  'tis  to  God  I  speed  so  fast, 
For  in  God's  breast,  my  own  abode. 

Those  shoals  of  dazzling  glory,  passed, 

I  lay  my  spirit  down  at  last. 
I  lie  where  I  have  always  lain, 

God  smiles  as  he  has  always  smiled  ; 
Ere  suns  and  moons  could  wax  and  wane, 

Ere  stars  were  thunder-girt,  or  piled 

The  heavens,  God  thought  on  me  his  child ; 
Ordained  a  life  for  me,  arrayed 

Its  circumstances  every  one 
To  the  minutest ;  ay,  God  said 

This  head  this  hand  should  rest  upon 

Thus,  ere  he  fashioned  star  or  sun. 
And  having  thus  created  me, 

Thus  rooted  me,  he  bade  me  grow, 
Guiltless  for  ever,  like  a  tree 

That  buds  and  blooms,  nor  seeks  to  know 

The  law  by  which  it  prospers  so : 
But  sure  that  thought  and  word  and  deed 

All  go  to  swell  his  love  for  me. 
Me,  made  because  that  love  had  need 

Of  something  irreversibly 
,  Pledged  solely  its  content  to  be. 

As  to  A  Grammarian  s  Funeral,  that  poem  also 
belongs  to  the  German  rather  than  to  the  ItaUan 
spirit.  The  Renaissance  in  Italy  lost  its  religion  ; 
at  the  same  time,  in  Germany,  it  added  a  reformation 


320  BROWNING 

of  religion  to  the  New  Learning.  The  Renaissance 
in  Italy  desired  the  fulness  of  knowledge  in  this 
world,  and  did  not  look  for  its  infinities  in  the  world 
beyond.  In  Germany  the  same  desire  made  men 
call  for  the  infinities  of  knowledge  beyond  the 
earth.  A  few  Italians,  like  Savonarola,  like  M. 
Angelo,  did  the  same,  and  failed  to  redeem  their 
world ;  but  eternal  aspiration  dwelt  in  the  soul  of 
every  German  who  had  gained  a  religion.  In 
Italy,  as  the  Renaissance  rose  to  its  luxury  and 
trended  to  its  decay,  the  pull  towards  personal 
righteousness  made  by  belief  in  an  omnipotent 
goodness  who  demands  the  subjection  of  our  will 
to  his,  ceased  to  be  felt  by  artists,  scholars,  and 
cultivated  society.  A  man's  will  was  his  only 
law.  On  the  other  hand,  the  life  of  the  New 
Learning  in  Germany  and  England  was  weighted 
with  a  sense  of  duty  to  an  eternal  Righteousness. 
The  love  of  knowledge  or  beauty  was  modified  into 
seriousness  of  life,  carried  beyond  this  life  in 
thought,  kept  clean,  and,  though  filled  with  inces- 
sant labour  on  the  earth,  aspired  to  reach  its  fru- 
ition only  in  the  life  to  come. 

This  is  the  spirit  and  the  atmosphere  of  the 
Grammaria7i' s  Ftmeral,  and  Browning's  little  note 
at  the  beginning  says  that  its  time  '*  was  shortly 
after  the  revival  of  learning  in  Europe."  I  have 
really  no  proof  that  Browning  laid  the  scene  of 
his  poem  in  Germany,  save  perhaps  the  use  of  such 
words  as  "  thorp  "  and  "  croft,"  but  there  is  a  clean, 
pure  morning  light  playing  through  the  verse,  a 
fresh,  health-breathing  northern  air,  which  does  not 
fit  in  with  Italy  ;  a  joyous,  buoyant  youthfulness  in 
the  song  and  march  of  the  students  who  carry  their 


IMAGINATIVE  REPRESENTATIONS        321 

master  with  gay  strength  up  the  mountain  to  the 
very  top,  all  of  them  filled  with  his  aspiring  spirit, 
all  of  them  looking  forward  with  gladness  and 
vigour  to  life  —  which  has  no  relation  whatever  to 
the  temper  of  Florentine  or  Roman  life  during  the 
age  of  the  Medici.  The  bold  brightness,  moral 
earnestness,  pursuit  of  the  ideal,  spiritual  intensity, 
reverence  for  good  work  and  for  the  man  who  did 
it,  which  breathe  in  the  poem,  differ  by  a  whole 
world  from  the  atmosphere  of  life  in  Andrea  del 
Sarto.  This  is  a  crowd  of  men  who  are  moving 
upwards,  who,  seizing  the  Renaissance  elements, 
knitted  them  through  and  through  with  reformation 
of  life,  faith  in  God,  and  hope  for  man.  They  had 
a  future  and  knew  it.  The  semi-Paganism  of  the 
Renaissance  had  not,  and  did  not  know  it  had  not. 
We  may  close  this  series  of  Renaissance  repre- 
sentations by  A  Toccata  of  Gahippi's.  It  cannot 
take  rank  with  the  others  as  a  representative  poem. 
It  is  of  a  different  class ;  a  changeful  dream  of 
images  and  thoughts  which  came  to  Browning 
as  he  was  playing  a  piece  of  eighteenth-century 
Venetian  music.  But  in  the  dream  there  is  a 
sketch  of  that  miserable  life  of  fruitless  pleasure, 
the  other  side  of  which  was  dishonourable  pov- 
erty, into  which  Venetian  society  had  fallen  in  the 
eighteenth  century.  To  this  the  pride,  the  irre- 
ligion,  the  immorality,  the  desire  of  knowledge 
and  beauty  for  their  own  sake  alone,  had  brought 
the  noblest,  wisest,  and  most  useful  city  in  Italy. 
That  part  of  the  poem  is  representative.  It  is  the 
end  of  such  a  society  as  is  drawn  in  TJie  Bishop 
orders  his  Tomb  at  St.  Praxed^s  Church.  That 
tomb  is  placed  in  Rome,  but  it  is  in  Venice  that 


322  BROIVN/NG 

this  class  of  tombs  reached  their  greatest  splendour 
of  pride,  opulence,  folly,  debasement,  and  irreligion. 
Finally,  there  are  a  few  poems  which  paint  the 
thoughts,  the  sorrows,  the  pleasures,  and  the  poli- 
tical passions  of  modern  Italy.  There  is  the  Italian 
in  England^  full  of  love  for  the  Italian  peasant  and 
of  pity  for  the  patriot  forced  to  live  and  die  far 
from  his  motherland.  Mazzini  used  to  read  it  to 
his  fellow-exiles  to  show  them  how  fully  an  Eng- 
lish poet  could  enter  into  the  temper  of  their  soul. 
So  far  it  may  be  said  to  represent  a  type.  But 
it  scarcely  comes  under  the  range  of  this  chapter. 
But  Up  ill  a  Villa ^  doiun  in  the  City,  is  so  vivid  a 
representation  of  all  that  pleased  a  whole  type  of 
the  city-bred  and  poor  nobles  of  Italy  at  the  time 
when  Browning  wrote  the  Dramatic  Lyrics  that 
I  cannot  omit  it.  It  is  an  admirable  piece  of 
work,  crowded  with  keen  descriptions  of  Nature 
in  the  Casentino,  and  of  life  in  the  streets  of  Flor- 
ence. And  every  piece  of  description  is  so  filled 
with  the  character  of  the  "  Italian  person  of  qual- 
ity "  who  describes  them  —  a  petulant,  humorous, 
easily  angered,  happy,  observant,  ignorant,  poor 
gentleman  —  that  Browning  entirely  disappears. 
The  poem  retains  for  us  in  its  verse,  and  indeed 
in  its  light  rhythm,  the  childlikeness,  the  naivet^^ 
the  simple  pleasures,  the  ignorance,  and  the  hon- 
est boredom  with  the  solitudes  of  Nature  —  of  a 
whole  class  of  Italians,  not  only  of  the  time  when 
it  was  written,  but  of  the  present  day.  It  is  a 
delightful,  inventive  piece  of  gay  and  pictorial 
humour. 


CHAPTER   XIII 

WOMANHOOD  IN  BROWNING 

THE  first  woman  we  meet  in  Browning's  poetry 
is  Pauline ;  a  twofold  person,  exceedingly  un- 
like the  woman  usually  made  by  a  young  poet. 
She  is  not  only  the  Pauline  idealised  and  also 
materialised  by  the  selfish  passion  of  her  lover,  but 
also  the  real  woman  whom  Browning  has  conceived 
underneath  the  lover's  image  of  her.  This  doubling 
of  his  personages,  as  seen  under  two  diverse  aspects 
or  by  two  different  onlookers,  in  the  same  poem,  is 
not  unfrequent  in  his  poetry,  and  it  pleased  his 
intellect  to  make  these  efforts.  When  the  thing 
was  well  done,  its  cleverness  was  amazing,  even 
imaginative  ;  when  it  was  ill  done,  it  was  confusing. 
Tennyson  never  did  this  ;  he  had  not  analytic  power 
enough.  What  he  sees  of  his  personages  is  all 
one,  quite  clearly  drawn  and  easy  to  understand. 
But  we  miss  in  them,  and  especially  in  his  women, 
the  intellectual  play,  versatility,  and  variety  of 
Browning.  Tennyson's  women  sometimes  border 
on  dulness,  are  without  that  movement,  change,  and 
surprises,  which  in  women  disturb  mankind  for  evil 
or  for  good.  If  Tennyson  had  had  a  little  more  of 
Browning's  imaginative  analysis,  and  Browning  a 
little  less  of  it,  both  would  have  been  better  artists. 

323 


324  BROWNING 

The  Pauline  of  the  lover  is  the  commonplace 
woman  whom  a  young  man  so  often  invents  out  of 
a  woman  for  his  use  and  pleasure.  She  is  to  be 
his  salvation,  to  sympathise  with  his  ideals,  joys, 
and  pains,  to  give  him  everything,  with  herself, 
and  to  live  for  him  and  him  alone.  Nothing  can 
be  more  ;/^i/"and  simple  than  this  common  selfish- 
ness which  forgets  that  a  woman  has  her  own 
life,  her  own  claim  on  the  man,  and  her  own  in- 
dividuality to  develop ;  and  this  element  in  the 
poem,  which  never  occurs  again  in  Browning's 
poetry,  may  be  the  record  of  an  early  experience. 
If  so,  he  had  escaped  from  this  youthful  error  be- 
fore he  had  finished  the  poem,  and  despised  it,  per- 
haps too  much.  It  is  excusable  and  natural  in 
the  young.  His  contempt  for  this  kind  of  love 
is  embodied  in  the  second  Pauline.  She  is  not  the 
woman  her  lover  imagines  her  to  be,  but  farolderand 
more  experienced  than  her  lover ;  who  has  known 
long  ago  what  love  was ;  who  always  liked  to  be 
loved,  who  therefore  suffers  her  lover  to  expatiate 
as  wildly  as  he  pleases;  but  whose  life  is  quite 
apart  from  him,  enduring  him  with  pleasurable 
patience,  criticising  him,  wondering  how  he  can 
be  so  excited.  There  is  a  dim  perception  in  the 
lover's  phrases  of  these  elements  in  his  mistress' 
character;  and  that  they  are  in  her  character  is 
quite  plain  from  the  patronising  piece  of  criticism 
in  French  which  Browning  has  put  into  her  mouth. 
The  first  touch  of  his  humour  appears  in  the  con- 
trast of  the  gentle  and  lofty  boredom  of  the  letter 
with  the  torrents  of  love  in  the  poem.  And  if  we 
may  imagine  that  the  lover  is  partly  an  image  of 
what  Browning  once  felt  in  a  youthful  love,  we 


WOMANHOOD  IN  BROWNING  325 

may  also  think  that  the  making  of  the  second  and 
critical  Pauline  was  his  record,  when  his  love  had 
passed,  of  what  he  thought  about  it  all. 

This  mode  of  treatment,  so  much  more  analytic 
than  imaginative,  belongs  to  Browning  as  an  artist. 
He  seems,  while  he  wrote,  as  if  half  of  him  sat 
apart  from  the  personages  he  was  making,  con- 
templating them  in  his  observant  fashion,  discus- 
sing them  coolly  in  his  mind  while  the  other  half 
of  him  wrote  about  them  with  emotion ;  placing 
them  in  different  situations  and  imagining  what 
they  would  then  do ;  inventing  trials  for  them  and 
recombining,  through  these  trials,  the  elements  of 
their  characters ;  arguing  about  and  around  them, 
till  he  sometimes  loses  the  unity  of  their  person- 
ality. This  is  a  weakness  in  his  work  when  he 
has  to  create  characters  in  a  drama  who  may  be 
said,  like  Shakespeare's,  to  have,  once  he  has 
created  them,  a  life  of  their  own  independent  of  the 
poet.  His  spinning  of  his  own  thoughts  about  their 
characters  makes  us  often  realise,  in  his  dramas, 
the  individuality  of  Browning  more  than  the  in- 
dividuality of  the  characters.  We  follow  him  at 
this  work  with  keen  intellectual  pleasure,  but  we  do 
not  always  follow  him  with  a  passionate  humanity. 

On  the  contrary,  this  habit,  which  was  one 
cause  of  his  weakness  as  an  artist  in  the  drama, 
increased  his  strength  as  an  artist  when  he  made 
single  pictures  of  men  and  women  at  isolated  crises 
in  their  lives ;  or  when  he  pictured  them  as  they 
seemed  at  the  moment  to  one,  two,  or  three  differ- 
ently tempered  persons  —  pictorial  sketches  and 
studies  which  we  may  hang  up  in  the  chambers 
of  the  mind  for  meditation  or  discussion.     Their 


326  BROWNING 

intellectual  power  and  the  emotional  interest  they 
awaken,  the  vivid  imaginative  lightning  which 
illuminates  them  in  flashes,  arise  out  of  that  part 
of  his  nature  which  made  him  a  weak  dramatist. 

Had  he  chosen,  for  example,  to  paint  Lady 
Carlisle  as  he  conceived  her,  in  an  isolated  por- 
trait, and  in  the  same  circumstances  as  in  his  drama 
of  Strafford,  we  should  have  had  a  clear  and  intimate 
picture  of  her  moving,  alive  at  every  point,  amidst 
the  decay  and  shipwreck  of  the  Court.  But  in  the 
play  she  is  a  shade  who  comes  and  goes,  unout- 
lined,  confused,  and  confusing,  scarcely  a  woman  at 
all.  The  only  clear  hints  of  what  Browning  meant 
her  to  be  are  given  in  the  asides  of  Strafford. 

Browning  may  have  been  content  with  Strafford 
as  a  whole,  but,  with  his  passion  for  vitality,  he 
could  not  have  been  content  with  either  Lady 
Carlisle  or  the  Queen  as  representatives  of  women. 
Indeed,  up  to  this  point,  when  he  had  written  Pau- 
line, Paracelsus,  and  Strafford,  he  must  have  felt 
that  he  had  left  out  of  his  poetry  one  half  of  the 
human  race;  and  his  ambition  was  to  represent 
both  men  and  women.  Pauline's  chief  appearance 
is  in  French  prose.  Michel,  in  Paracelsus,  is  a 
mere  silhouette  of  the  sentimental  German  Frau, 
a  soft  sympathiser  with  her  husband  and  with  the 
young  eagle  Paracelsus,  who  longs  to  leave  the  home 
she  would  not  leave  for  the  world  —  an  excellent  and 
fruitful  mother.  She  is  set  in  a  pleasant  garden 
landscape.  Twice  Browning  tries  to  get  more  out 
of  her  and  to  lift  her  into  reality.  But  the  men 
carry  him  away  from  her,  and  she  remains  undrawn. 
These  mere  images,  with  the  exception  of  the  woman 
in  Porphyria' s  Lover,  who,  with  a  boldness  which 


WOMANHOOD  IN  BROWNING  327 

might  have  astonished  even  Byron  but  is  charac- 
teristic of  Browning  in  his  audacious  youth,  leaves 
the  ball  to  visit  her  lover  in  the  cottage  in  the 
garden  —  are  all  that  he  had  made  of  womanhood 
in  1837,  four  years  after  he  had  begun  to  pubUsh 
poetry. 

It  was  high  time  he  should  do  something  better, 
and  he   had   now   begun   to   know   more   of   the 
variousness  of  women  and  of  their  resolute  grip 
on   life  and   affairs.     So,  in    Sordcllo,  he   created 
Palma.      She  runs  through  the  poem,  and  her  ap- 
pearances mark  turning  points  in  Sordello's  devel- 
opment ;  but  thrice  she  appears  in  full  colour  and 
set  in  striking  circumstances  —  first,  in  the  secret 
room  of  the  palace  at  Verona  with  Sordello  when 
she  expounds  her  policy,  and  afterwards  leans  with 
him  amid  a  gush  of   torch-fire  over  the  balcony, 
whence  the  grey-haired  councillors  spoke  to  the 
people  surging  in  the  square  and  shouting  for  the 
battle.    The  second  time  is  in  the  streets  of  Ferrara, 
full  of  camping  men  and  fires;  and  the  third  is 
when  she  waits  with  Taurello  in  the  vaulted  room 
below  the  chamber  where  Sordello  has  been  left  to 
decide  what  side  he  shall  take,   for  the  Emperor 
or  the  Pope.     He  dies  while  they  wait,  but  there 
is  no  finer  passage  in  the  poem  than  this  of  Palma 
and   Taurello  talking  in  the  dim  corridor  of   the 
new  world  they  would  make  for  North  Italy  with 
Sordello.     It  is  not  dramatic  characterisation,  but 
ma2:nificent  individualisation  of  the  woman  and  the 

man. 

We  see  Palma  first  as  a  girl  at  Goito,  where  she 
fills  Sordello  with  dreams,  and  Browning  gives  her 
the  beauty  of  the  Venetians  Titian  painted. 


328  BROWNING 

How  the  tresses  curled 
Into  a  sumptuous  swell  of  gold  and  wound 
About  her  like  a  glory  !  even  the  ground 
Was  bright  as  with  spilt  sunbeams : 

Full  consciousness  of  her  beauty  is  with  her,  frank 
triumph  in  it ;  but  she  is  still  a  child.  At  the  Court 
of  Love  she  is  a  woman,  not  only  conscious  of  her 
lovehness,  but  able  to  use  it  to  bind  and  loose, 
having  sensuous  witchery  and  intellectual  power, 
that  terrible  combination.  She  lays  her  magic  on 
Sordello. 

But  she  is  not  only  the  woman  of  personal  magic 
and  beauty.  Being  of  high  rank  and  mixed  with 
great  events,  she  naturally  becomes  the  political 
woman,  a  common  type  in  the  thirteenth  century. 
And  Browning  gives  her  the  mental  power  to 
mould  and  direct  affairs.  She  uses  her  personal 
charm  to  lure  Sordello  into  politics. 

Her  wise 
And  lulling  words  are  yet  about  the  room, 
Her  presence  wholly  poured  upon  the  gloom 
Down  even  to  her  vesture''s  creeping  stir. 
And  so  reclines  he,  saturate  with  her. 

But  when  she  felt  she  held  her  friend  indeed 
Safe,  she  threw  back  her  curls,  began  implant 
Her  lessons ; 

Her  long  discourse  on  the  state  of  parties,  and 
how  Sordello  may,  in  mastering  them,  complete  his 
being,  fascinates  him  and  us  by  the  charm  of  her 
intelligence. 

But  the  political  woman  has  often  left  love 
behind.  Politics,  like  devotion,  are  a  woman's 
reaction  from  the  weariness  of  loving  and  being 
loved.     But  Palma  is  young,  and  in  the  midst  of 


WOMANHOOD   IN  BROWNING  329 

her  politics  she  retains  passion,  sentiment,  tender- 
ness, and  charm.  She  dreams  of  some  soul  beyond 
her  own,  who,  coming,  should  call  on  all  the  force 
in  her  character ;  enable  her,  in  loving  him,  to  give 
consummation  to  her  work  for  Italy ;  and  be  him- 
self the  hand  and  sword  of  her  mind.  Therefore 
she  held  herself  in  leash  till  the  right  man  came, 
till  she  loved.  *' Waits  he  not,"  her  heart  cries, 
and  mixes  him  with  coming  Spring  : 

Waits  he  not  the  waking  year? 
His  almond  blossoms  must  be  honey-ripe 
By  this ;  to  welcome  him,  fresh  runnels  stripe 
The  thawed  ravines  ;  because  of  him,  the  wind 
Walks  like  a  herald.     I  shall  surely  find 
Him  now. 

She  finds  him  in  Sordello,  and  summons  him, 
when  the  time  is  ripe,  to  Verona.  Love  and  ambi- 
tion march  together  in  her  now.  In  and  out  of  all 
her  schemes  Sordello  moves.  The  glory  of  her 
vision  of  North  Italian  rule  is  like  a  halo  round  his 
brow.  Not  one  political  purpose  is  lost,  but  all  are 
transfigured  in  her  by  love.  Softness  and  strength, 
intellect  and  feeling  meet  in  her.  This  is  a  woman 
nobly  carved,  and  the  step  from  Michel,  Pauline, 
and  Lady  Carlisle  to  her  is  an  immense  one. 

By  exercise  of  his  powers  Browning's  genius  had 
swiftly  developed.  There  comes  a  time,  sooner  or 
later,  to  a  great  poet  when,  after  many  experiments, 
the  doors  of  his  intellect  and  soul  fly  open,  and  his 
genius  is  flooded  with  the  action  and  thought  of 
what  seems  a  universe.  And  with  this  revelation 
of  Man  and  Nature,  a  tidal  wave  of  creative  power, 
new  and  impelling,  carries  the  poet  far  beyond  the 
station  w^here  last  he  rested.     It  came  to  Browning 


330  BROWNING 

now.  The  creation  of  Palma  would  be  enough  to 
prove  it,  but  there  is  not  a  character  or  scene  in 
Soj'dello  which  does  not  also  prove  it. 

In  this  new  outrush  of  his  genius  he  created  a 
very  different  woman  from  Palma.  He  created 
Pippa,  the  Asolan  girl,  at  the  other  end  of  society 
from  Palma,  at  the  other  end  of  feminine  character. 
Owing  to  the  host  of  new  thoughts  which  in  this 
early  summer  of  genius  came  pouring  into  his  soul 
—  all  of  which  he  tried  to  express,  rejecting  none, 
choosing  none  out  of  the  rest,  expressing  only  half 
of  a  great  number  of  them  ;  so  delighted  with  them 
all  that  he  could  leave  none  out  —  he  became 
obscure  in  Sordello.  Owing  also  to  the  great  com- 
plexity of  the  historical  viise-en-schie  in  which  he 
placed  his  characters  in  that  poem,  he  also  became 
obscure.  Had  he  been  an  experienced  artist  he 
would  have  left  out  at  least  a  third  of  the  thoughts 
and  scenes  he  inserted.  As  it  was,  he  threw  all  his 
thoughts  and  all  the  matters  he  had  learnt  about  the 
politics,  cities,  architecture,  customs,  war,  gardens, 
religion,  and  poetry  of  North  Italy  in  the  thirteenth 
century,  pell-mell  into  this  poem,  and  left  them,  as 
it  were,  to  find  their  own  places.  This  was  very 
characteristic  of  a  young  man  when  the  pot  of  his 
genius  was  boiling  over.  Nothing  bolder,  more 
incalculable,  was  ever  done  by  a  poet  in  the  period 
of  his  storm  and  stress.  The  boundless  and  to  ex- 
press it,  was  never  sought  with  more  audacity.  It 
was  impossible,  in  this  effort,  for  him  to  be  clear,  and 
we  need  not  be  vexed  with  him.  The  daring,  the 
rush,  the  unconsciousness,  and  the  youth  of  it  all, 
are  his  excuse,  but  not  his  praise.     And  when  the 


WOMANHOOD   IN  BROWNING  331 

public  comes  to  understand  that  the  dimness  and 
complexity  of  Sordello  arise  from  plenteousness 
not  scarcity  of  thought,  and  that  they  were  not  a 
pose  of  the  poet's  but  the  natural  leaping  of  a  full 
fountain  just  let  loose  from  its  mountain  chamber, 
it  will  have  a  personal  liking,  not  perhaps  for  the 
poem  but  for  Browning.  ''  I  will  not  read  the 
book,"  it  will  say,  ''  but  I  am  glad  he  had  it  in  him." 

Still  it  was  an  artistic  failure,  and  when  Brown- 
ing understood  that  the  public  could  not  compre- 
hend him  —  and  we  must  remember  that  he  desired 
to  be  comprehended,  for  he  loved  mankind  —  he 
thought  he  would  use  his  powers  in  a  simpler 
fashion,  and  please  the  honest  folk.  So,  in  the  joy 
of  having  got  rid  in  Sordello  of  so  many  of  his 
thoughts  by  expression  and  of  mastering  the  rest ; 
and  determined,  since  he  had  been  found  difficult, 
to  be  the  very  opposite  —  loving  contrast  like  a 
poet  —  he  wrote  Pippa  Passes.  I  need  not  describe 
its  plan.     Our  business  is  with  the  women  in  it. 

Ottima,  alive  with  carnal  passion,  in  the  fire  of 
which  the  murder  of  her  husband  seems  a  mere 
incident,  is  an  audacious  sketch,  done  in  splashes 
of  ungradated  colour.  Had  Browning  been  more 
in  the  woman's  body  and  soul  he  would  not  have 
done  her  in  jerks  as  he  has  done.  Her  trick  of 
talking  of  the  landscape,  as  if  she  were  on  a  holiday 
like  Pippa,  is  not  as  subtly  conceived  or  executed 
as  it  should  be,  and  is  too  far  away  from  her 
dominant  carnality  to  be  natural.  And  her  sen- 
sualism is  too  coarse  for  her  position.  A  cer- 
tain success  is  attained,  but  the  imagination  is 
frequently  jarred.  The  very  outburst  of  unsensual 
love  at  the  end,  when  her  love    passes  from    the 


332  BROlVlsriNG 

flesh  into  the  spirit,  when  self-sacrifice  dawns  upon 
her  and  she  begins  to  suffer  the  first  agonies  of 
redemption,  is  plainly  more  due  to  the  poet's  pity 
than  to  the  woman's  spirit.  Again,  Sebald  is  the 
first  to  feel  remorse  after  the  murder.  Ottima 
only  begins  to  feel  it  when  she  thinks  her  lover  is 
ceasing  to  love  her.  I  am  not  sure  that  to  reverse 
the  whole  situation  would  not  be  nearer  to  the 
truth  of  things ;  but  that  is  matter  of  discussion. 
Then  the  subject-matter  is  sordid.  Nothing  re- 
lieves the  coarseness  of  Sebald,  Ottima,  and  Luca, 
and  their  relations  to  one  another  but  the  few  de- 
scriptions of  Nature  and  the  happy  flash  of  inno- 
cence when  Pippa  passes  by.  Nor  are  there  any 
large  fates  behind  the  tale  or  large  effects  to  follow 
which  might  lift  the  crime  into  dignity.  This  mean, 
commonplace,  ugly  kind  of  subject  had  a  strange 
attraction  for  Browning,  as  we  see  in  The  Inn 
Alburn^  in  Red  Cotton  Night-Cap  Country,  and  else- 
where. I  may  add  that  it  is  curious  to  find  him, 
in  1 84 1,  writing  exactly  like  a  modern  realist, 
nearly  fifty  years  before  realism  of  this  kind  had 
begun.  And  this  illustrates  what  I  have  said  of 
the  way  in  which  he  anticipated  by  so  many  years 
the  kind  of  work  to  which  the  literary  world  should 
come.  The  whole  scene  between  Sebald  and  Ottima 
might  have  been  written  by  a  powerful,  relentless, 
modern  novelist. 

We  have  more  of  this  realism,  but  done  with 
great  skill,  humanity,  even  tenderness,  in  the  meet- 
ing and  talk  of  the  young  harlotry  on  the  steps  of 
the  Duomo  near  the  fountain.  When  we  think  of 
this  piece  of  bold,  clear,  impressionist  reality  cast 
into  the  midst  of  the  proprieties  of  literature  in 


WOMANHOOD  IN  BROWNING  333 

1 841,  it  is  impossible  not  to  wonder  and  smile< 
The  girls  are  excellently  drawn  and  varied  from 
each  other.  Browning's  pity  gathers  round  them, 
and  something  of  underlying  purity,  of  natural 
grace  of  soul,  of  tenderness  in  memory  of  their 
youth  emerges  in  them;  and  the  charm  of  their 
land  is  round  their  ways.  There  was  also  in  his 
mind,  I  think,  a  sense  of  picturesqueness  in  their 
class  when  they  were  young,  which,  mingHng  with 
his  pity  for  them,  attracted  his  imagination,  or 
touched  into  momentary  life  that  roving  element 
in  a  poet  which  resents  the  barriers  made  by  social 
and  domestic  purity.  Fifine  at  the  Fair  is  partly  a 
study  of  that  temper  which  comes  and  goes,  goes 
and  comes  in  the  life  not  only  of  poets  but  of 
ordinary  men  and  women. 

Then,  to  illustrate  this  further,  there  is  in 
Sordello  a  briUiant  sketch  of  girls  of  this  kind 
at  Venice,  full  of  sunlight,  colour,  and  sparkling 
water,  in  which  he  has  seen  these  butterflies  of 
women  as  a  painter  would  see  them,  or  as  a  poet 
who,  not  thinking  then  of  moral  questions  or  feel- 
ing pity  for  their  fate,  is  satisfied  for  the  flying 
moment  with  the  picture  they  make,  with  the 
natural  freedom  of  their  life. 

But  he  does  not  leave  that  picture  without  a 
representation  of  the  other  side  of  this  class  of 
womanhood.  It  was  a  daring  thing,  when  he 
wished  to  say  that  he  would  devote  his  whole 
work  to  the  love  and  representation  of  humanity 
to  symboHse  it  by  a  sorrowful  street-girl  in  Venice 
who  wistfully  asks  an  alms ;  worn  and  broken 
with  sorrow  and  wrong;  whose  eyes  appeal  for 
pity,  for  comprehension  of  her  good  and  for  his 


334  BROWNING 

love;  and  whose  fascination  and  beauty  are  more 
to  him  than  those  of  her  unsuffering  companions. 
The  other  side  of  that  class  of  women  is  here 
given  with  clear  truth  and  just  compassion,  and  the 
representation  is  lifted  into  imaginative  strength, 
range,  and  dignity  of  thought  and  feeling  by  her 
being  made  the  image  of  the  whole  of  humanity. 
'' This  woman,"  he  thought,  ''is  humanity,  whom 
I  love,  who  asks  the  poet  in  me  to  reveal  her  as 
she  is,  a  divine  seed  of  God  to  find  some  day  its 
flowering  —  the  broken  harlot  of  the  universe,  who 
will  be,  far  off,  the  Magdalen  redeemed  by  her 
ineradicable  love.  That,  and  with  every  power  I 
have,  I  will,  as  poet,  love  and  represent." 

This  is  the  imagination  working  at  its  best,  with 
its  most  penetrative  and  passionate  power,  and 
Browning  is  far  greater  as  a  poet  in  this  Thing  of 
his,  where  thought  and  love  are  knit  into  union  to 
give  birth  to  moral,  intellectual,  and  spiritual  beauty, 
than  he  is  in  those  lighter  and  cleverer  poems  in 
which  he  sketches  with  a  facile  but  too  discursive 
a  pencil,  the  transient  moments,  grave  or  light,  of 
the  lives  of  women.  Yet  this  and  they  show  his 
range,  his  variety,  the  embracing  of  his  sympathy. 

Over  against  these  girls  in  the  market-place, 
against  Ottima  in  her  guilt,  and  Phene  who  is  as 
yet  a  nonentity  (her  speech  to  the  sculptor  is  too 
plainly  Browning's  analysis  of  the  moment,  not  her 
own  thinking  —  no  girl  of  fourteen  brought  up  by 
Natalia  would  talk  in  that  fashion)  is  set  Pippa, 
the  Hght,  life,  and  love  of  the  day,  the  town,  the 
people,  and  the  poem.  She  passes  like  an  angel 
by  and  touches  with  her  wing  events  and  persons 
and  changes  them  to  good.     She  has  some  natural 


WOMANHOOD   IN  BROWNING  335 

genius,  and  is  as  unconscious  of  her  genius  as  she 
is  of  the  good  she  does.  In  her  unconsciousness  is 
the  fountain  of  her  charm.  She  Hves  Uke  a  flower 
of  the  field  that  knows  not  it  has  blest  and  com- 
forted with  its  beauty  the  travellers  who  have 
passed  it  by.  She  has  only  one  day  in  the  whole 
year  for  her  own,  and  for  that  day  she  creates  a 
fresh  personality  for  herself.  She  clothes  her  soul, 
intellect,  imagination,  and  spiritual  aspiration  in 
holiday  garments  for  the  day,  becoming  for  the  time 
a  new  poetic  self,  and  able  to  choose  any  other 
personality  in  Asolo  from  hour  to  hour  —  the  queen 
and  spirit  of  the  town  ;  not  wishing  to  be,  actually, 
the  folk  she  passes  by,  but  only,  since  she  is  so 
isolated,  to  be  something  in  their  lives,  to  touch 
them  for  help  and  company. 

The  world  of  Nature  speaks  to  her  and  loves 
her.  She  sees  all  that  is  beautiful,  feeds  on  it, 
and  grasps  the  matter  of  thought  that  underlies  the 
beauty.  And  so  much  is  she  at  home  with  Nature 
that  she  is  able  to  describe  with  ease  in  words 
almost  as  noble  as  the  thing  itself  the  advent  of 
the  sun.  When  she  leaps  out  of  her  bed  to  meet 
the  leap  of  the  sun,  the  hymn  of  description  she 
sings  might  be  sung  by  the  Hours  themselves  as 
they  dance  round  the  car  of  the  god.  She  can 
even  play  with  the  great  Mother  as  with  an  equal, 
or  Hke  her  child.  The  charming  gaiety  with  which 
she  speaks  to  the  sunhghts  that  dance  in  her  room, 
and  to  the  flowers  which  are  her  sisters,  prove, 
however  isolated  her  life  may  be,  that  she  is  never 
alone.  Along  with  this  brightness  she  has  serious- 
ness, the  sister  of  her  gaiety  ;  the  deep  seriousness 
of  imagination,  the  seriousness  also  of  the  evening 


336  BROWNING 

when  meditation  broods  over  the  day  and  its  doings 
before  sleep.  These,  with  her  sweet  humanity, 
natural  piety,  instinctive  purity,  compose  her  of 
soft  sunshine  and  soft  shadow.  Nor  does  her 
sadness  at  the  close,  which  is  overcome  by  her 
trust  in  God,  make  her  less  but  more  dear  to  us. 
She  is  a  beautiful  creation.  There  are  hosts  of 
happy  women  like  her.  They  are  the  salt  of  the 
earth.  But  few  poets  have  made  so  much  of  them 
and  so  happily,  or  sung  about  these  birds  of  God 
so  well  as  Browning  has  in  Pippa  Passes. 

That  was  in  1841.  Pleased  with  his  success  in 
this  half-lyrical,  half-dramatic  piece,  he  was  lured 
towards  the  drama  again,  and  also  to  try  his  hand 
at  those  short  lyrics  —  records  of  transient  emotion 
on  fanciful  subjects  —  or  records  of  short  but  intense 
moments  of  thought  or  feeling.  It  is  a  pity  that 
he  did  not  give  to  dramatic  lyrics  (in  which  species 
of  poetry  he  is  quite  our  first  master)  the  time  he 
gave  to  dramas,  in  which  he  is  not  much  better 
than  an  amateur.  Nevertheless,  we  cannot  omit 
the  women  in  the  dramas.  I  have  already  written 
of  Lady  Carlisle.  Polyxena,  in  King  Victor  and 
King  Charles,  is  partly  the  political  woman  and 
partly  the  sensible  and  loving  wife  of  a  strangely 
tempered  man.  She  is  fairly  done,  but  is  not 
interesting.  Good  womanly  intelligence  in  affairs, 
good  womanly  support  of  her  man ;  clear  womanly 
insight  into  men  and  into  intrigue  —  a  woman  of 
whom  there  are  hundreds  of  thousands  in  every 
rank  of  life.  In  her,  as  in  so  much  of  Browning's 
work,  the  intellect  of  the  woman  is  of  a  higher 
quality  than  the  intellect  of  the  man. 

Next,  among  his  women,  is  Anael  in  the  Return 


WOMANHOOD  IN  BROWNING  337 

of  the  Druses.  She  is  placed  in  too  unnatural  a 
situation  to  allow  her  nature  to  have  fair  play. 
In  the  preternatural  world  her  superstition  creates, 
she  adores  Djabal,  murders  the  Prefect,  and  dies 
by  her  own  hand.  She  is,  in  that  world,  a  study 
of  a  young  girl's  enthusiasm  for  her  faith  and  her 
country,  and  for  the  man  she  thinks  divine ;  and 
were  the  subject,  so  far  as  it  relates  to  her  cha- 
racter, well  or  clearly  wrought,  she  might  be  made 
remarkable.  As  it  is  wrought,  it  is  so  intertwisted 
with  complex  threads  of  thought  and  passion  that 
any  clear  outline  of  her  character  is  lost.  Both 
Djabal  and  she  are  like  clouds  illuminated  by 
flashes  of  sheet  lightning  which  show  an  infinity 
of  folds  and  shapes  of  vapour  in  each  cloud,  but 
show  them  only  for  an  instant ;  and  then,  when 
the  flashes  come  again,  show  new  folds,  new  involu- 
tions. The  characters  are  not  allowed  by  Browning 
to  develop  themselves. 

Anael,  when  she  is  in  the  preternatural  world, 
loves  Djabal  as  an  incarnation  of  the  divine,  but 
in  the  natural  world  of  her  girlhood  her  heart  goes 
out  to  the  Knight  of  Malta  who  loves  her.  The 
in-and-out  of  these  two  emotional  states  —  one  in 
the  world  of  religious  enthusiasm,  and  one  in  her 
own  womanhood,  as  they  cross  and  re-cross  one 
another  —  is  elaborated  with  merciless  analysis; 
and  Anael's  womanhood  appears,  not  as  a  whole, 
but  in  bits  and  scraps.  How  will  this  young  girl, 
divided  by  two  contemporaneous  emotions,  one  in 
the  supernatural  and  one  in  the  natural  world,  act 
in  a  crisis  of  her  life  }  Well,  the  first,  conquering 
the  second,  brings  about  her  death  the  moment  she 
tries  to  transfer  the  second  into  the  world  of  the 


338  BROWNING 

first  —  her  dim,  half-conscious  love  for  Lois  into 
her  conscious  adoration  of  Djabal. 

Mildred  and  Guendolen  are  the  two  women  in 
A  Blot  ill  the  ' Scutchcojt.  Guendolen  is  the  incar- 
nation of  high-hearted  feminine  commonsense,  of 
clear  insight  into  the  truth  of  things,  born  of  the 
power  of  love  in  her.  Amid  all  the  weaknesses  of 
the  personages  and  the  plot ;  in  the  wildered  situa- 
tion made  by  a  confused  clashing  of  pride  and  inno- 
cence and  remorse,  in  which  Browning,  as  it  were 
on  purpose  to  make  a  display  of  his  intellectual 
ability,  involves  those  poor  folk  —  Guendolen  is  the 
rock  on  which  we  can  rest  in  peace ;  the  woman  of 
the  world,  yet  not  worldly ;  full  of  experience,  yet 
having  gained  by  every  experience  more  of  love; 
just  and  strong  yet  pitiful,  and  with  a  healthy  but 
compassionate  contempt  for  the  intelligence  of  the 
men  who  belong  to  her. 

Contrasted  with  her,  and  the  quality  of  her  love 
contrasted  also,  is  Mildred,  the  innocent  child  girl 
who  loves  for  love's  sake,  and  continues  to  be  lost 
in  her  love.  But  Browning's  presentation  of  her 
innocence,  her  love,  is  spoiled  by  the  over-remorse, 
shame,  and  fear  under  whose  power  he  makes  her 
so  helpless.  They  are  in  the  circumstances  so  un- 
naturally great  that  they  lower  her  innocence  and 
love,  and  the  natural  courage  of  innocence  and  love. 
These  rise  again  to  their  first  level,  but  it  is  only 
the  passion  of  her  lover's  death  which  restores 
them.  And  when  they  recur,  she  is  outside  of 
girlhood.  One  touch  of  the  courage  she  shows  in 
the  last  scene  would  have  saved  in  the  previous 
scene  herself,  her  lover,  and  her  brother.  The  lie  she 
lets  her  brother  infer  when  she  allows  him  to  think 


WOMANHOOD  IN  BROWNING  339 

that  the  lover  she  has  confessed  to  is  not  the  Earl, 
yet  that  she  will  marry  the  Earl,  degrades  her 
altogether  and  justly  in  her  brother's  eyes,  and 
is  so  terribly  out  of  tune  with  her  character  that  I 
repeat  I  cannot  understand  how  Browning  could 
invent  that  situation.  It  spoils  the  whole  pre- 
sentation of  the  girl.  It  is  not  only  out  of  her 
character,  it  is  out  of  Nature.  Indeed,  in  spite  of 
the  poetry,  in  spite  of  the  pathetic  beauty  of  the 
last  scene,  Mildred  and  Tresham  are  always  over- 
heightened,  over-strained  beyond  the  concert-pitch 
of  Nature.  But  the  drawing  of  the  woman's  cha- 
racter suffers  more  from  this  than  the  man's,  even 
though  Tresham,  in  the  last  scene,  is  half  turned 
into  a  woman.  Sex  seems  to  disappear  in  that 
scene. 

A  different  person  is  Colombe,  the  Duchess  in 
Colombe's  Birthday.  That  play,  as  I  have  said, 
gets  on,  but  it  gets  on  because  Colombe  moves 
every  one  in  the  play  by  her  own  motion.  From 
beginning  to  end  of  the  action  she  is  the  fire  and 
the  soul  of  it.  Innocent,  frank,  and  brave,  simple 
and  constant  among  a  group  of  false  and  worldly 
courtiers,  among  whom  she  moves  like  the  white 
Truth,  untouched  as  yet  by  love  or  by  the  fates  of 
her  position,  she  is  suddenly  thrown  into  a  whirl- 
pool of  affairs  and  of  love  ;  and  her  simplicity, 
clearness  of  intelligence,  unconscious  rightness  of 
momentary  feeling,  which  comes  of  her  not  thinking 
about  her  feelings  —  that  rare  and  precious  element 
in  character  —  above  all,  her  belief  in  love  as  the 
one  worthy  thing  in  the  world,  bring  her  out  of 
the  whirlpool,  unshipwrecked,  unstained  by  a  single 
wave  of  ill-feeling  or  mean  thinking,  into  a  quiet 


340  BROWNING 

harbour  of  affection  and  of  power.  For  she  will 
influence  Berthold  all  his  life  long. 

She  is  herself  lovely.  Valence  loves  her  at 
sight.  Her  love  for  Valence  is  born  before  she 
knows  it,  and  the  touch  of  jealousy,  which  half 
reveals  it  to  her,  is  happily  wrought  by  Browning. 
When  she  finds  out  that  Valence  did  for  love  of 
her  what  she  thought  was  done  for  loyalty  alone  to 
her,  she  is  a  little  revolted ;  her  single-heartedness 
is  disappointed.  She  puts  aside  her  growing  love, 
which  she  does  not  know  as  yet  is  love,  and  says 
she  will  find  out  if  Berthold  wishes  to  marry  her 
because  he  loves  her,  or  for  policy.  Berthold  is 
as  honest  as  she  is,  and  tells  her  love  has  nothing 
to  do  with  the  matter.  The  thought  of  an  untrue 
life  with  Berthold  then  sends  her  heart  with  a 
rush  back  to  Valence,  and  she  chooses  love  and 
obscurity  with  Valence.  It  is  the  portrait  of  incar- 
nate truth,  in  vivid  contrast  to  Constance,  who  is 
a  liar  in  grain. 

Constance  is  the  heroine  of  the  fragment  of  a 
drama  called  /;/  a  Balcony.  Norbert,  a  young 
diplomat,  has  served  the  Queen,  who  is  fifty  years 
old,  for  a  year,  all  for  the  love  of  Constance,  a 
cousin  and  dependent  of  the  Queen.  He  tells 
Constance  he  will  now,  as  his  reward,  ask  the 
Queen  for  her  hand.  Constance  says,  ''  No  ;  that 
will  ruin  us  both ;  temporise ;  tell  the  Queen,  who 
is  hungry  for  love,  that  you  love  her ;  and  that,  as 
she  cannot  marry  a  subject,  you  will  be  content 
with  me,  whom  the  Queen  loves."  Norbert  objects, 
and  no  wonder,  to  this  lying  business,  but  he  does 
it ;  and  the  Queen  runs  to  Constance,  crying,  "  I 
am  loved,  thank  God  !      I  will  throw  everything 


WOMANHOOD  IN  BROWNING  341 

aside  and  marry  him.  I  thought  he  loved  you,  but 
he  loves  me."  Then  Constance,  wavering  from 
truth  again,  says  that  the  Queen  is  right.  Norbert 
does  love  her.  And  this  is  supposed  by  some  to 
be  a  noble  self-sacrifice,  done  in  pity  for  the  Queen. 
It  is  much  more  like  jealousy. 

Then,  finding  that  all  Norbert's  future  depends 
on  the  Queen,  she  is  supposed  to  sacrifice  herself 
again,  this  time  for  Norbert's  sake.  She  will  give 
him  up  to  the  Queen,  for  the  sake  of  his  career ; 
and  she  tells  the  Queen,  before  Norbert,  that  he 
has  confessed  to  her  his  love  for  the  Queen  —  an- 
other lie!  Norbert  is  indignant  —  he  may  well  be 
—  and  throws 'down  all  this  edifice  of  falsehood. 
The  Queen  knows  then  the  truth,  and  leaves  them 
in  a  fury.  Constance  and  Norbert  fly  into  each 
other's  arms,  and  the  tramp  of  the  soldiers  who 
come  to  arrest  them  is  heard  as  the  curtain  falls. 

I  do  not  beheve  that  Browning  meant  to  make 
self-sacrifice  the  root  of  Constance's  doings.  If  he 
did,  he  has  made  a  terrible  mess  of  the  whole  thing. 
He  was  much  too  clear-headed  a  morahst  to  Hnk 
self-sacrifice  to  systematic  lying.  Self-sacrifice  is 
not  self-sacrifice  at  all  when  it  sacrifices  truth. 
It  may  wear  the  clothes  of  Love,  but,  in  injuring 
righteousness,  it  injures  the  essence  of  love.  It  has 
a  surface  beauty,  for  it  imitates  love,  but  if  mankind 
is  allured  by  this  beauty,  mankind  is  injured.  It 
is  the  false  Florimel  of  self-sacrifice.  Browning, 
who  had  studied  self-sacrifice,  did  not  exhibit  it  in 
Constance.  There  is  something  else  at  the  root 
of  her  actions,  and  I  believe  he  meant  it  to  be 
jealousy.  The  very  first  lie  she  urges  her  lover  to 
tell  (that  is,  to  let  the  Queen  imagine  he  loves  her) 


342  BROWNING 

is  just  the  thing  a  jealous  woman  would  invent  to 
try  her  lover  and  the  Queen,  if  she  suspected  the 
Queen  of  loving  him,  and  him  of  being  seduced 
from  her  by  the  worldly  advantage  of  marrying 
the  Queen.  And  all  the  other  lies  are  best  ex- 
plained on  the  supposition  of  jealous  experiments. 
At  the  last  she  is  satisfied ;  the  crowning  test  had 
been  tried.  Through  a  sea  of  lying  she  had  made 
herself  sure  of  Norbert's  love,  and  she  falls  into  his 
arms.  Had  Browning  meant  Constance  to  be  an 
image  of  self-sacrifice,  he  would  scarcely  have  writ- 
ten that  line  when  Norbert,  having  told  the  truth 
of  the  matter  to  the  Queen,  looks  at  both  women, 
and  cries  out,  "'  You  two  glare,  each  at  each,  like 
panthers  now."  A  woman,  filled  with  the  joy  and 
sadness  of  pure  self-sacrifice,  would  not  have  felt 
at  this  moment  like  a  panther  towards  the  woman 
for  whom  she  had  sacrificed  herself. 

Even  as  a  study  of  jealousy,  Constance  is  too 
subtle.  Jealousy  has  none  of  these  labyrinthine 
methods ;  it  goes  straight  with  fiery  passion  to  its 
end.  It  may  be  said,  then,  that  Constance  is  not 
a  study  of  jealousy.  But  it  may  be  a  study  by 
Browning  of  what  he  thought  in  his  intellect  jeal- 
ousy would  be.  At  any  rate,  Constance,  as  a  study 
of  self-sacrifice,  is  a  miserable  failure.  Moreover, 
it  does  not  make  much  matter  whether  she  is  a 
study  of  this  or  that,  because  she  is  eminently 
wrong-natured.  Her  lying  is  unendurable,  only  to 
be  explained  or  excused  by  the  madness  of  jealousy, 
and  she,  though  jealous,  is  not  maddened  enough 
by  jealousy  to  excuse  her  lies.  The  situations  she 
causes  are  almost  too  ugly.  Whenever  the  truth  is 
told,  either  by  the  Queen  or  Norbert,  the  situations 


WOMANHOOD  IN  BROWNING  343 

break  up  in  disgrace  for  her.  It  is  difficult  to 
imagine  how  Norbert  could  go  on  loving  her.  His 
love  would  have  departed  if  they  had  come  to  live 
together.  He  is  radically  true,  and  she  is  radically 
false.  A  fatal  split  would  have  been  inevitable. 
Nothing  could  be  better  for  them  both  —  after  their 
momentary  outburst  of  love  at  the  end — than  death. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  art,  Constance  is 
interesting.  It  is  more  than  we  can  say  of 
Domizia  in  Luria.  She  is  nothing  more  than  a 
passing  study  whom  Browning  uses  to  voice  his 
theories.  Eulaha  in  A  Soul's  Tragedy  is  also  a 
transient  thing,  only  she  is  more  colourless,  more  a 
phantom  than  Domizia. 

By  this  time,  by  the  year  1846,  Browning  had 
found  out  that  he  could  not  write  dramas  well, 
or  even  such  dramatic  proverbs  as  /;/  a  Balcony. 
And  he  gave  himself  up  to  another  species  of  his 
art.  The  women  he  now  draws  (some  of  which 
belong  to  the  years  during  which  he  wrote  dramas) 
are  done  separately,  in  dramatic  lyrics  as  he  called 
them,  and  in  narrative  and  philosophical  poems. 
Some  are  touched  only  at  moments  of  their  lives, 
and  we  are  to  infer  from  the  momentary  action  and 
feeling  the  whole  of  the  woman.  Others  are  care- 
fully and  lovingly  drawn  from  point  to  point  in  a 
variety  of  action,  passion,  and  circumstance.  In 
these  we  find  Browning  at  his  best  in  the  drawing 
of  women.  I  know  no  women  among  the  second- 
rate  poets  so  sweetly,  nobly,  tenderly,  and  wisely 
drawn  as  Pompilia  and  Balaustion. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

WOMANHOOD  IN  BROWNING 
{THE  DRAMATIC  LYRICS  AND  POMPILIA) 

NO  modern  poet  has  written  of  women  with 
such  variety  as  Browning.  Coleridge,  ex- 
cept in  a  few  Love-poems,  scarcely  touched  them. 
Wordsworth  did  not  get  beyond  the  womanhood  of 
the  home  affections,  except  in  a  few  lovely  and 
spiritual  sketches  of  girlhood  which  are  unique  in 
our  literature,  in  which  maidenhood  and  the  soul 
of  Nature  so  interchange  their  beauty  that  the  girl 
seems  born  of  the  lonely  loveliness  of  Nature  and 
lives  with  her  mother  like  a  child. 

What  motherhood  in  its  deep  grief  and  joy, 
what  sisterhood  and  wifehood  may  be,  have  never 
been  sung  with  more  penetration  and  exquisiteness 
than  Wordsworth  sang  them.  But  of  the  immense 
range,  beyond,  of  womanhood  he  could  not  sing. 
Byron's  women  are  mostly  in  love  with  Byron 
under  various  names,  and  he  rarely  strays  beyond 
the  woman  who  is  loved  or  in  love.  The  woman 
who  is  most  vital,  true,  and  tender  is  Haidee  in 
Do ji  Juan.  Shelley's  women  melt  into  philosophic 
mist,  or  are  used  to  build  up  a  political  or  social 
theory,  as  if  they  were  "  properties  "  of  literature. 
Cythna,    Rosalind,    Asia,    Emilia,    are    ideas,    not 

344 


WOMANHOOD  IN  BROWNING  345 

realities.  Beatrice  is  alive,  but  she  was  drawn 
for  him  in  the  records  of  her  trial.  Even  the 
woman  of  his  later  lyrics  soon  ceases  to  be  flesh 
and  blood.  Keats  let  women  alone,  save  in 
Isabella,  and  all  that  is  of  womanhood  in  her  is 
derived  from  Boccaccio.  Madeline  is  nothing  but 
a  picture.  It  is  curious  that  his  remarkable  want 
of  interest  in  the  time  in  which  he  lived  should 
be  combined  with  as  great  a  want  of  interest  in 
women,  as  if  the  vivid  life  of  any  period  in  the 
history  of  a  people  were  bound  up  with  the  vivid 
life  of  women  in  that  period.  When  women 
awake  no  full  emotion  in  a  poet,  the  life  of  the 
time,  as  in  the  case  of  Keats,  awakes  little  emotion 
in  him.  He  will  fly  to  the  past  for  his  subjects. 
Moreover,  it  is  perhaps  worth  saying  that  when  the 
poets  cease  to  write  well  about  women,  the  phase 
of  poetry  they  represent,  however  beautiful  it  be,  is 
beginning  to  decay.  When  poetry  is  born  into  a 
new  life,  women  are  as  living  in  it  as  men.  Woman- 
hood became  at  once  one  of  its  dominant  subjects 
in  Tennyson  and  Browning.  Among  the  new  poli- 
tical, social,  rehgious,  philosophic,  and  artistic  ideas 
which  were  then  borne  like  torches  through  Eng- 
land, the  idea  of  the  free  development  of  women  was 
also  born ;  and  it  carried  with  it  a  strong  emotion. 
They  claimed  the  acknowledgment  of  their  sepa- 
rate individuality,  of  their  distinct  use  and  power 
in  the  progress  of  the  world.  This  was  embodied 
with  extraordinary  fulness  in  Aurora  Leigh,  and  its 
emotion  drove  itself  into  the  work  of  Tennyson  and 
Browning.  How  Tennyson  treated  the  subject  in 
the  Princess  is  well  known.  His  representation 
of  women  in  his  other  poems  does  not  pass  beyond 


346  BROWNING 

a  few  simple,  well-known  types  both  of  good  and 
bad  women.  But  the  particular  types  into  which 
the  variety  of  womanhood  continually  throws  itself, 
the  quick  individualities,  the  fantastic  simplicities 
and  subtleties,  the  resolute  extremes,  the  unconsid- 
ered impulses,  the  obstinate  good  and  evil,  the  bold 
cruelties  and  the  bold  self-sacrifices,  the  fears  and 
audacities,  the  hidden  work  of  the  thoughts  and 
passions  of  women  in  the  far-off  worlds  within  them 
where  their  soul  claims  and  possesses  its  own  de- 
sires —  these  were  beyond  the  power  of  Tennyson 
to  describe,  even,  I  think,  to  conceive.  But  they 
were  in  the  power  of  Browning,  and  he  made  them, 
at  least  in  lyric  poetry,  a  chief  part  of  his  work. 

In  women  he  touched  great  variety  and  great 
individuality  ;  two  things  each  of  which  includes 
the  other,  and  both  of  which  were  dear  to  his 
imagination.  With  his  longing  for  variety  of 
representation,  he  was  not  content  to  pile  woman- 
hood up  into  a  few  classes,  or  to  dwell  on  her  uni- 
versal qualities.  He  took  each  woman  separately, 
marking  out  the  points  which  differentiated  her 
from,  not  those  which  she  shared  with,  the  rest  of 
her  sex.  He  felt  that  if  he  dwelt  only  on  the  deep- 
seated  roots  of  the  tree  of  womanhood,  he  would 
miss  the  endless  play,  fancy,  movement,  interaction, 
and  variety  of  its  branches,  foliage,  and  flowers. 
Therefore,  in  his  lyrical  work,  he  leaves  out  for 
the  most  part  the  simpler  elements  of  womanhood 
and  draws  the  complex,  the  particular,  the  impulsive, 
and  the  momentary.  Each  of  his  women  is  distinct 
from  the  rest.  That  is  a  great  comfort  in  a  world 
which,  through  laziness,  wishes  to  busy  itself  with 
classes  rather  than  with  personalities.     I  do  not 


WOMANHOOD  IN  BROWNING  347 

believe  that  Browning  ever  met  man  or  woman 
without  saying  to  himself — Here  is  a  new  world; 
it  may  be  classed,  but  it  also  stands  alone.  What 
distinguishes  it  from  the  rest  —  that  I  will  know 
and  that  describe. 

When  women  are  not  enslaved  to  conventions  — 
and  the  new  movement  towards  their  freedom  of 
development  which  began  shortly  after  1840  had 
enfranchised  and  has  continued  ever  since  to 
enfranchise  a  great  number  from  this  slavery  — 
they  are  more  individual  and  various  than  men  are 
allowed  to  be.  They  carry  their  personal  desires, 
aspirations,  and  impulses  into  act,  speech,  and  into 
extremes  with  much  greater  licence  than  is  possible 
to  men.  One  touches  with  them  much  more  easily 
the  original  stuff  of  humanity.  It  was  this  original, 
individual,  and  various  Thing  in  women  on  which 
Browning  seized  with  delight.  He  did  not  write 
half  as  much  as  other  poets  had  done  of  woman 
as  being  loved  by  man  or  as  loving  him.  I  have 
said  that  the  mere  Love-poem  is  no  main  element 
in  his  work.  He  wrote  of  the  original  stuff  of 
womanhood,  of  its  good  and  bad  alike,  sometimes 
of  it  as  all  good,  as  in  Pompilia ;  but  for  the  most 
part  as  mingled  of  good  and  ill,  and  of  the  good  as 
destined  to  conquer  the  ill. 

He  did  not  exalt  her  above  man.  He  thought 
her  as  vital,  interesting,  and  important  for  progress 
as  man,  but  not  more  interesting,  vital,  or  impor- 
tant. He  neither  lowered  her  nor  idealised  her 
beyond  natural  humanity.  She  stands  in  his  poetry 
side  by  side  with  man  on  an  equality  of  value  to 
the  present  and  future  of  mankind.  And  he  has 
wrought  this   out   not   by  elaborate  statement  of 


348  BROWNING 

it  in  a  theory,  as  Tennyson  did  in  the  Princess 
with  a  conscious  patronage  of  womanhood,  but  by 
unconscious  representation  of  it  in  the  multitude  of 
women  whom  he  invented. 

But  though  the  wholes  were  equal,  the  particulars 
of  which  the  wholes  were  composed  differed  in  their 
values ;  and  women  in  his  view  were  more  keenly 
alive  than  men,  at  least  more  various  in  their 
manifestation  of  life.  It  was  their  intensity  of 
life  which  most  attracted  him.  He  loved  nothing 
so  much  as  Hfe  —  in  plant  or  animal  or  man.  His 
longer  poems  are  records  of  the  larger  movement  of 
human  hfe,  the  steadfast  record  in  quiet  verse  as  in 
Paracelsus,  or  the  clashing  together  in  abrupt  verse 
as  in  SordellOy  of  the  turmoil  and  meditation,  the 
trouble  and  joy  of  the  living  soul  of  humanity. 
When  he,  this  archangel  of  reahty,  got  into  touch 
with  pure  fact  of  the  human  soul,  beating  with  life, 
he  was  enchanted.  And  this  was  his  vast  happiness 
in  his  longest  poem,  TJie  Ring  and  the  Book  — 

Do  you  see  this  square  old  yellow  book  I  toss 

r  the  air,  and  catch  again,  and  twirl  about 

By  the  crumpled  vellum  covers  —  pure  crude  fact 

Secreted  from  man's  life  when  hearts  beat  hard 

And  brains,  high  blooded,  ticked  two  centuries  hence? 

Give  it  me  back.     The  thing's  restorative 

r  the  touch  and  sight. 

But  in  his  lyrics,  it  was  not  the  steady  development 
of  life  on  which  he  loved  to  write,  but  the  unexpected, 
original  movement  of  life  under  the  push  of  quick 
thought  and  sudden  passion  into  some  new  form 
of  action  which  broke  through  the  commonplace  of 
existence.  Men  and  women,  and  chiefly  women, 
when  they  spoke  and  acted  on  a  keen  edge  of  life 


WOMANHOOD  IN  BROWNING  349 

with  a  precipice  below  them  or  on  the  summit  of 
the  moment,  with  straight  and  clear  intensity,  and 
out  of  the  original  stuff  of  their  nature  —  were  his 
darling  lyric  subjects.  And  he  did  this  work  in 
lyrics,  because  the  lyric  is  the  poem  of  the  moment. 
There  was  one  of  these  critical  moments  which 
attracted  him  greatly  —  that  in  which  all  after- 
life is  contained  and  decided ;  when  a  step  to  the 
right  or  left  settles,  in  an  instant,  the  spiritual 
basis  of  the  soul.  I  have  already  mentioned  some 
of  these  poems  —  those  concerned  with  love,  such 
as  By  the  Fh^eside  or  Cristina  —  and  the  woman  is 
more  prominent  in  them  than  the  man.  One  of 
the  best  of  them,  so  far  as  the  drawing  of  a  woman 
is  concerned,  is  Dis  A  liter  Visum.  We  see  the 
innocent  girl,  and  ten  years  after  what  the  world 
has  made  of  her.  But  the  heart  of  the  girl  lies 
beneath  the  woman  of  the  world.  And  she  recalls 
to  the  man  the  hour  when  they  lingered  near  the 
church  on  the  cliff ;  when  he  loved  her,  when  he 
might  have  claimed  her,  and  did  not.  He  feared 
they  might  repent  of  it ;  sacrificing  to  the  present 
their  chance  of  the  eternities  of  love.  "  Fool !  who 
ruined  four  lives  —  mine  and  your  opera-dancer's, 
your  own  and  my  husband's ! "  Whether  her 
outburst  now  be  quite  true  to  her  whole  self  or 
not  Browning  does  not  let  us  know ;  but  it  is 
true  to  that  moment  of  her,  and  it  is  full  of  the 
poetry  of  the  moment  she  recalls.  Moreover,  these 
thirty  short  verses  paint  as  no  other  man  could 
have  done  the  secret  soul  of  a  woman  in  society. 
I  quote  her  outburst.  It  is  full  of  Browning's  keen 
poetry ;  and  the  first  verse  of  it  may  well  be  com- 
pared with  a  similar  moment  in  By  the  Fireside^ 


350  BROWNING 

where  Nature  is  made  to  play  the  same  part,  but 
succeeds  as  here  she  fails  : 

Now  I  may  speak :  you  fool,  for  all 

Your  lore  !     Who  made  things  plain  in  vain  ? 
What  was  the  sea  for?     What,  the  grey 
Sad  church,  that  solitary  day, 

Crosses  and  graves  and  swallows'  call? 

Was  there  nought  better  than  to  enjoy  ? 

No  feat  which,  done,  would  make  time  break, 
And  let  us  pent-up  creatures  through 
Into  eternity,  our  due? 

No  forcing  earth  teach  heaven's  employ  ? 

No  wise  beginning,  here  and  now, 

What  cannot  grow  complete  (earth's  feat) 
And  heaven  must  finish,  there  and  then? 
No  tasting  earth's  true  food  for  men. 

Its  sweet  in  sad,  its  sad  in  sweet? 

No  grasping  at  love,  gaining  a  share 

O'  the  sole  spark  from  God's  life  at  strife 
With  death,  so,  sure  of  range  above 
The  limits  here?     For  us  and  love, 

Failure ;  but,  when  God  fails,  despair. 

This  you  call  wisdom?     Thus  you  add 

Good  unto  good  again,  in  vain? 

You  loved,  with  body  worn  and  weak ; 

I  loved,  with  faculties  to  seek : 
Were  both  loves  worthless  since  ill-clad? 

Let  the  mere  star-fish  in  his  vault 
Crawl  in  a  wash  of  weed,  indeed, 
Rose-jacynth  to  the  finger  tips : 
He,  whole  in  body  and  soul,  outstrips 

Man,  found  witli  either  in  default. 

But  what's  whole,  can  increase  no  more, 
Is  dwarfed  and  dies,  since  here's  its  sphere. 
The  devil  laughed  at  you  in  his  sleeve ! 
You  knew  not?     That  I  well  believe ; 

Or  you  had  saved  two  souls  :  nay,  four. 


WOMANHOOD   IN  BROWNING  351 

For  Stephanie  sprained  last  night  her  wrist, 
Ankle  or  something.     "Pooh,"  cry  you? 
At  any  rate  she  danced,  all  say, 
Vilely ;  her  vogue  has  had  its  day. 

Here  comes  my  husband  from  his  whist. 

Here  the  woman  speaks  for  herself.     It  is  cha- 
racteristic of   Browning's  boldness  that  there  are 
a  whole  set  of  poems  in  which  he  imagines  the 
unexpressed  thoughts  which  a  woman  revolves  in 
self-communion  under  the  questionings  and  troubles 
of  the  passions,  and  chiefly  of  the  passion  of  love. 
The  most  elaborate  of  these  is  James  Lees    Wife, 
which  tells  what  she  thinks  of  when  after  long  years 
she  has  been  unable  to  retain  her  husband's  love. 
Finally,    she  leaves   him.      The   analysis   of    her 
thinking  is  interesting,  but  the  woman  is  not.     She 
is  not  the  quick,  natural  woman  Browning  was  able 
to  paint  so  well  when  he  chose.     His  own  analytic 
excitement,  which  increases  in  mere  intellectuality 
as  the  poem  moves   on,  enters  into  her,  and  she 
thinks    more    through    Browning    the    man    than 
through   her  womanhood.     Women   are   complex 
enough,  more  complex  than  men,  but  they  are  not 
complex  in  the  fashion  of  this  poem.     Under  the 
circumstances   Browning    has  made,  her   thought 
would  have  been  quite  clear  at  its  root,  and  indeed 
in  its   branches.     She   is   represented  as  in  love 
with  her  husband.     Were  she  really  in  love,  she 
would  not  have  been  so  involved,  or  able  to  argue 
out  her  Hfe  so  anxiously.     Love  or  love's  sorrow 
knows  itself  at  once  and  altogether,  and  its  cause 
and  aim  are   simple.     But  Browning  has  uncon- 
sciously made  the  woman  clear  enough  for  us  to 
guess  the  real  cause  of  her  departure.     That  de- 


352  BROWNING 

parture  is  believed  by  some  to  be  a  self-sacrifice. 
There  are  folk  who  see  self-sacrifice  in  everything 
Browning  wrote  about  women.  Browning  may 
have  originally  intended  her  action  to  be  one  of 
self-sacrifice,  but  the  thing,  as  he  went  on,  was 
taken  out  of  his  hands,  and  turns  out  to  be  quite  a 
different  matter.  The  woman  really  leaves  her 
husband  because  her  love  for  him  was  tired  out. 
She  talks  of  leaving  her  husband  free,  and  perhaps, 
in  women's  way,  persuades  herself  that  she  is  sac- 
rificing herself ;  but  she  desires  in  reality  to  set 
herself  free  from  an  unavailing  struggle  to  keep  his 
love.  There  comes  a  time  when  the  striving  for 
love  wearies  out  love  itself.  And  James  Lee's 
wife  had  reached  that  moment.  Her  departure, 
thus  explained,  is  the  most  womanly  thing  in  the 
poem,  and  I  should  not  wonder  if  Browning  meant 
it  so.  He  knew  what  self-sacrifice  really  was,  and 
this  departure  of  the  woman  was  not  a  true  self- 
sacrifice. 

Another  of  these  poems  in  which  a  woman 
speaks  out  her  heart  is  Aiiy  Wife  to  any  Husband. 
She  is  dying,  and  she  would  fain  claim  his  un- 
dying fidelity  to  his  love  of  her ;  but  though  she 
believes  in  his  love,  she  thinks,  when  her  presence 
is  not  with  him,  that  his  nature  will  be  drawn 
towards  other  women.  Then  what  he  brings  her, 
when  he  meets  her  again,  will  not  be  perfect. 
Womanly  to  the  core,  and  her  nature  is  a  beautiful 
nature,  she  says  nothing  which  is  not  kind  and 
true,  and  the  picture  she  draws  of  faithfulness, 
without  one  stain  of  wavering,  is  natural  and  lovely. 
But,  for  all  that,  it  is  jealousy  that  speaks,  the 
desire  to  claim  all  for  one's  self.     **  Thou  art  mine, 


WOMANHOOD  IN  BROWNING  353 

and  mine  only  "  — that  fine  selfishness  which  injures 
love  so  deeply  in  the  end,  because  it  forbids  its 
expansion,  that  is,  forbids  the  essential  nature  of 
love  to  act.     That  may  be  pardoned,  unless  in  its 
extremes,  during  Hfe,  if  the  pardon  does  not  in- 
crease it ;  but  this  is  in  the  hour  of  death,  and  it  is 
unworthy  of  the  higher  world.     To  carry  jealousy 
beyond  the  grave  is  a  phase  of  that  selfish  passion 
over  which  this  hour,  touched  by  the  larger  thought 
of   the   infinite    world,   should    have   uplifted   the 
woman.     Still,  what  she  says   is   in    Nature,  and 
Browning's   imagination   has   closed    passionately 
round  his  subject.     But  he  has  left  us  with  pity 
for  the  woman  rather  than  with  admiration  of  her. 
Perhaps  the  subtlest  part  of   the    poem  is  the 
impression  left  on  us  that  the  woman  knows  all  her 
pleading  will  be  in  vain,  that  she  has  fathomed  the 
weakness  of  her  husband's  character.     He  will  not 
like  to  remember  that  knowledge  of  hers ;  and  her 
letting  him  feel  it  is  a  kind  of  vengeance  which  will 
not  help  him  to  be  faithful.     It  is  also  her  worst 
bitterness,  but  if  her  womanhood  were  perfect,  she 
would  not  have  had  that  bitterness. 

In  these  two  poems,  and  in  others,  there  is  to  be 
detected  the  deep-seated  and  quiet  half-contempt 

contempt  which  does  not  damage  love,  contempt 

which  is  half  pity  —  which  a  woman  who  loves 
a  man  has  for  his  weakness  under  passion  or  weari- 
ness. Both  the  wives  in  these  poems  feel  that  their 
husbands  are  inferior  to  themselves  in  strength 
of  character  and  of  intellect.  To  feel  this  is 
common  enough  in  women,  but  is  rarely  confessed 
by  them.  A  man  scarcely  ever  finds  it  out  from 
his  own  observation ;  he  is  too  vain  for  that.     But 

2  A 


354  BROWNING 

Browning  knew  it.  A  poet  sees  many  things,  and 
perhaj^s  his  wife  told  him  this  secret.  It  was  like 
his  audacity  to  express  it. 

This  increased  knowledge  of  womanhood  was 
probably  due  to  the  fact  that  Browning  possessed  in 
his  wife  a  woman  of  genius  who  had  studied  her 
own  sex  in  herself  and  in  other  women.  It  is 
owing  to  her,  I  think,  that  in  so  many  poems  the 
women  are  represented  as  of  a  finer,  even  a 
stronger  intellect  than  the  men.  Many  poets  have 
given  them  a  finer  intuition ;  that  is  a  common 
representation.  But  greater  intellectual  power 
allotted  to  women  is  only  to  be  found  in  Browning. 
The  instances  of  it  are  few,  but  they  are  remarkable. 

It  was  owing  also  to  his  wife,  whose  relation  to 
him  was  frank  on  all  points,  that  Browning  saw  so 
much  more  clearly  than  other  poets  into  the  deep, 
curious,  or  remote  phases  of  the  passions,  thoughts, 
and  vagaries  of  womanhood.  I  sometimes  wonder 
what  women  themselves  think  of  the  things  Brown- 
ing, speaking  through  their  mouth,  makes  them  say ; 
but  that  is  a  revelation  of  which  I  have  no  hope,  and 
for  which,  indeed,  I  have  no  desire. 

Moreover,  he  moved  a  great  deal  in  the  society 
where  women,  not  having  any  real  work  to  do,  or 
if  they  have  it,  not  doing  it,  permit  a  greater 
freedom  to  their  thoughts  and  impulses  than  those 
of  their  sex  who  sit  at  the  loom  of  duty.  Tenny- 
son withdrew  from  this  society,  and  his  women  are 
those  of  a  retired  poet  —  a  few  real  types  tenderly 
and  sincerely  drawn,  and  a  few  more  worked  out  by 
thinking  about  what  he  imagined  they  would  be, 
not  by  knowing  them.  Browning,  roving  through 
this  class  and  other  classes  of  society,  and  observ- 


WOMANHOOD  IN  BROWNING  355 

ing  while  he  seemed  unobservant,  drew  into  his 
inner  self  the  lives  of  a  number  of  women,  saw 
them  living  and  feeling  in  a  great  diversity  of 
circumstances;  and,  always  on  the  watch,  seized 
the  moment  into  which  he  thought  the  woman 
entered  with  the  greatest  intensity,  and  smote  that 
into  a  poem.  Such  poems,  naturally  lyrics,  came 
into  his  head  at  the  opera,  at  a  ball,  at  a  supper 
after  the  theatre,  while  he  talked  at  dinner,  when 
he  walked  in  the  park ;  and  they  record,  not  the 
whole  of  a  woman's  character,  but  the  vision  of  one 
part  of  her  nature  which  flashed  before  him  and 
vanished  in  an  instant.  Among  these  poems  are 
A  Light  Woman,  A  Pretty  Woman,  Solomon  a^id 
Balkis,  Gold  Hair,  and,  as  a  fine  instance  of  this 
sheet-lightning  poem  about  women  — Adam,  Lilith, 
and  Eve.  Too  Late  and  TJie  Worst  of  It  do  not 
belong  to  these  slighter  poems ;  they  are  on  a  much 
higher  level.  But  they  are  poems  of  society  and  its 
secret  lives.  The  men  are  foremost  in  them,  but  in 
each  of  them  a  different  woman  is  sketched,  through 
the  love  of  the  men,  with  a  masterly  decision. 

Among  all  these  women  he  did  not  hesitate  to 
paint  the  types  farthest  removed  from  goodness 
and  love.  The  lowest  woman  in  the  poems  is  she 
who  is  described  in  Times  Revenges  — 

So  is  my  spirit,  as  flesh  with  sin, 

Filled  full,  eaten  out  and  in 

With  the  face  of  her,  the  eyes  of  her, 

The  lips,  the  little  chin,  the  stir 

Of  shadow  round  her  mouth  ;  and  she 

—  ril  tell  you  —  calmly  would  decree 

That  I  should  roast  at  a  slow  fire, 

If  that  would  compass  her  desire 

And  make  her  one  whom  they  invite 

To  the  famous  ball  to-morrow  night. 


356  BROWNING 

Contrasted  with  this  woman,  from  whose  brutal 
nature  civiHsation  has  stripped  away  the  honour 
and  passion  of  the  savage,  the  woman  of  In  a 
Laboratory  shines  Hke  a  fallen  angel.  She  at  least 
is  natural,  and  though  the  passions  she  feels  are 
the  worst,  yet  she  is  capable  of  feeling  strongly. 
Neither  have  any  conscience,  but  we  can  conceive 
that  one  of  these  women  might  attain  it,  but  the 
other  not.  Both  are  examples  of  a  thing  I  have 
said  is  exceedingly  rare  in  Browning's  poetry  — 
men  or  women  left  without  some  pity  of  his  own 
touched  into  their  circumstances  or  character. 

hi  a  Laboratory  is  a  full-coloured  sketch  of  what 
womanhood  could  become  in  a  court  like  that  of 
Francis  I. ;  in  which  every  shred  of  decency,  gentle- 
hood, and  honour  had  disappeared.  Browning's 
description,  vivid  as  it  is,  is  less  than  the  reality. 
Had  he  deepened  the  colours  of  iniquity  and  in- 
decency instead  of  introducing  so  much  detailed 
description  of  the  laboratory,  detail  which  weakens 
a  little  our  impression  of  the  woman,  he  had  done 
better,  but  all  the  same  there  is  no  poet  in  England, 
living  or  dead,  who  could  have  done  it  so  well. 
One  of  the  best  things  in  the  poem  is  the  impres- 
sion made  on  us  that  it  is  not  jealousy,  but  the  hatred 
of  envy  which  is  the  motive  of  the  woman.  Jealousy 
supposes  love  or  the  image  of  love,  but  among 
those  who  surrounded  Francis,  love  did  not  exist  at 
all,  only  lust,  luxury,  and  greed  of  power;  and  in 
the  absence  of  love  and  in  the  scorn  of  it,  hate  and 
envy  reign  unchallenged.  This  is  what  Browning 
has  reahsed  in  this  poem,  and,  in  this  differentia- 
tion, he  has  given  us  not  only  historical  but  moral 
truth. 


WOMANHOOD  IN  BROWNING  357 

Apart  from  these  lighter  and  momentary  poems 
about  women  there  are  those  written  out  of  his  own 
ideal  of  womanhood,  built  up  not  only  from  all  he 
knew  and  loved  in  his  wife,  but  also  out  of  the 
dreams  of  his  heart.     They  are  the  imaginings  of 
the  high  honour  and  affection  which  a  man  feels 
for  noble,  natural,  and  honest  womanhood.     They 
are  touched  here  and  there  by  complex  thinking, 
but  for  the  most  part  are  of  a  beloved  simpHcity 
and  tenderness,  and  they  will  always  be  beautiful. 
There  is  a  sketch  of  the  woman  in  The  Italian  hi 
E7igland,  a  never  to  be  forgotten  thing.     It  is^  no 
wonder  the  exile   remembered    her   till   he    died. 
There  is  the  image  we  form  of  the  woman  in  The 
Flower's  Name.     He  does  not  describe  her;  she  is 
far  away,  but  her  imagined  character  and  presence 
fill  the  garden  with  an  incense  sweeter  than  all  the 
flowers,  and  her  beauty  irradiates  all  beauty,  so 
deHcately    and    so    plenteously    does   the    lover's 
passion  make  her  visible.     There  is  Evelyn  Hope, 
and  surely  no  high  and  pure  love  ever  created  a 
more  beautiful   soul   in   a  woman   than   hers  who 
waits  her  lover  in  the  spiritual  world.     There  are 
those  on  whom  we  have    already  dwelt  — Pippa, 
Colombe,  Mildred,  Guendolen.    There  is  the  woman 
in  the  Flight  of  the  Duchess ;  not  a  sketch,  but  a 
completed  picture.     We  see  her,  just  emerged  from 
her  convent,  thrilling  with   eagerness  to   see  the 
world,  beUeving  in  its  beauty,  interested  in  every- 
thing, in  the  movement  of  the  leaves  on  the  trees, 
of  the  birds  in  the  heaven,  ready  to  speak  to  every 
one  high  or  low,  desirous  to  get  at  the  soul  of  all 
things  in  Nature  and  Humanity,  herself  almost  a 
creature  of  the  element,  akin  to  air  and  fire. 


358  BROWNING 

She  is  beaten  into  silence,  but  not  crushed  ;  over- 
whelmed by  dry  old  people,  by  imitation  of  dead 
things,  but  the  life  in  her  is  not  slain.  When  the 
wandering  gipsy  claims  her  for  a  natural  life,  her 
whole  nature  blossoms  into  beauty  and  joy.  She 
will  have  troubles  great  and  deep,  but  every  hour 
will  make  her  conscious  of  more  and  more  of  life. 
And  when  she  dies,  it  will  be  the  beginning  of  an 
intenser  life. 

Finally,  there  is  his  wife.  She  is  painted  in  these 
lyric  poems  with  a  simplicity  of  tenderness,  with  a 
reticence  of  worship  as  sacred  as  it  is  fair  and 
dehcate,  with  so  intense  a  mingling  of  the  ideal 
and  the  real  that  we  never  separate  them,  and  with 
so  much  passion  in  remembrance  of  the  past  and 
in  longing  for  the  future,  that  no  comment  can 
enhance  the  picture  Browning  draws  of  her  charm, 
her  intellect,  and  her  spirit. 

These  pictures  of  womanhood  were  set  forth 
before  1868,  when  a  collected  edition  of  his  poems 
was  published  in  six  volumes.  They  were  chiefly 
short,  even  impressionist  studies,  save  those  in  the 
dramas,  and  Palma  in  Sordello.  Those  in  the 
dramas  were  troubled  by  his  want  of  power  to 
shape  them  in  that  vehicle.  It  would  have  then 
been  a  pity  if,  in  his  matured  strength,  he  had  not 
drawn  into  clear  existence,  with  full  and  careful, 
not  impressionist  work,  and  with  unity  of  conception, 
some  women  who  should,  standing  alone,  become 
permanent  personages  in  poetry;  whom  men  and 
women  in  the  future,  needing  friends,  should  love, 
honour,  and  obey,  and  in  whom,  when  help  and 
sympathy  and  wisdom  were  wanted,  these  healing 
powers  should  be  found.     Browning  did  this  for  us 


WOMANHOOD   IN  BROWNING  359 

in  Ponipilia  and  Balatistion,  an  Italian  and  a  Greek 
girl  —  not  an  English  girl.  It  is  strange  how  to 
the  very  end  he  lived  as  a  poet  outside  of  his  own 
land. 

In  1868,  Pompilia  appeared  before  the  world, 
and  she  has  captured  ever  since  the  imagination,  the 
conscience,  and  the  sentiment  of  all  who  love  woman- 
hood and  poetry.  Her  character  has  ennobled 
and  healed  mankind.  Born  of  a  harlot,  she  is  a 
star  of  purity ;  brought  up  by  characters  who  love 
her,  but  who  do  not  rise  above  the  ordinary  mean- 
ness and  small  commercial  honesty  of  their  class, 
she  is  always  noble,  generous,  careless  of  wealth, 
and  of  a  high  sense  of  honour.  It  is  as  if  Browning 
disdained  for  the  time  all  the  philosophy  of  heredity 
and  environment ;  and  indeed  it  was  characteristic 
of  him  to  beheve  in  the  sudden  creation  of  beauty, 
purity,  and  nobility  out  of  their  contraries  and  in 
spite  of  them.  The  miracle  of  the  unrelated  birth 
of  genius  —  that  out  of  the  dunghill  might  spring 
the  lily,  and  out  of  the  stratum  of  crime  the  saint 
—  was  an  article  of  faith  with  him.  Nature's  or 
God's  surprises  were  dear  to  him  ;  and  nothing 
purer,  tenderer,  sweeter,  more  natural,  womanly, 
and  saintly  was  ever  made  than  Pompilia,  the 
daughter  of  a  vagrant  impurity,  the  child  of  crime, 
the  girl  who  grew  to  womanhood  in  mean  and 
vulgar  circumstances. 

The  only  hatred  she  earns  is  the  hatred  of  Count 
Guido  her  husband,  the  devil  who  has  tortured  and 
murdered  her —  the  hatred  of  evil  for  good.  When 
Count  Guido,  condemned  to  death,  bursts  into  the 
unrestrained  expression  of  his  own  nature,  he  can- 
not say  one  word  about  Pompilia  which  is  not  set 


36o  BROWNING 

on  fire  by  a  hell  of  hatred.  Nothing  in  Browning's 
writing  is  more  vivid,  more  intense,  than  these 
sudden  outbursts  of  tiger  fierceness  against  his  wife. 
They  lift  and  enhance  the  image  of  Pompilia. 

When  she  comes  into  contact  with  other  cha- 
racters such  as  the  Archbishop  and  the  Governor, 
men  overlaid  with  long-deposited  crusts  of  con- 
vention, she  wins  a  vague  pity  from  them,  but  her 
simplicity,  naturalness,  and  saintliness  are  nearly  as 
repugnant  to  social  convention  as  her  goodness  is 
to  villany  ;  and  Browning  has,  all  through  the  poem, 
individuahsed  in  Pompiha  the  natural  simplicity 
of  goodness  in  opposition  to  the  artificial  morali- 
ties of  conservative  society.  But  when  Pompilia 
touches  characters  who  have  any  good,  however 
hidden,  in  them,  she  draws  forth  that  good.  Her 
so-called  parents  pass  before  they  die  out  of  mean- 
ness into  nobility  of  temper.  Conti,  her  husband's 
cousin,  a  fat,  waggish  man  of  the  world,  changes 
into  seriousness,  pity,  and  affection  under  her  silent 
influence.  The  careless  folk  she  meets  on  her 
flight  to  Rome  recognise,  even  in  most  suspicious 
circumstances,  her  innocence  and  nobleness ;  and 
change  at  a  touch  their  ordinary  nature  for  a 
higher.  And  when  she  meets  a  fine  character  like 
Caponsacchi,  who  has  been  led  into  a  worldy,  im- 
moral, and  indifferent  life,  he  is  swept  in  a  moment 
out  of  it  by  the  sight  alone  of  this  star  of  innocence 
and  spiritual  beauty,  and  becomes  her  true  mate, 
daily  self-excelled.  The  monk  who  receives  her 
dying  confession,  the  Pope,  far  set  by  his  age  above 
the  noise  of  popular  Rome,  almost  at  one  with  the 
world  beyond  death  and  feeling  what  the  divine 
judgment  would  be,  both  recognise  with  a  fervour 


WOMANHOOD  IN  BROWNING  361 

which  carries  them  beyond  the  prejudices  of  age 
and  of  their  society  the  loveHness  of  Heaven  in  the 
spirit  of  this  girl  of  seventeen  years,  and  claim  her 
as  higher  than  themselves. 

It  is  fitting  that  to  so  enskied  and  saintly  a  child, 
when  she  rests  before  her  death,  the  cruel  life  she 
had  led  for  four  years  should  seem  a  dream;  and  the 
working  out  of  that  thought,  and  of  the  two  checks 
of  reality  it  received  in  the  coming  of  her  child  and 
the  coming  of  Caponsacchi,  is  one  of  the  fairest  and 
most  delicate  pieces  of  work  that  Browning  ever 
accomplished.  She  was  so  innocent  and  so  simple- 
hearted  —  and  the  development  of  that  part  of  her 
character  in  the  stories  told  of  her  childhood  is 
exquisitely  touched  into  life  —  so  loving,  so  born  to 
be  happy  in  being  loved,  that  when  she  was  forced 
into  a  maze  of  villany,  bound  up  with  hatred,  cruelty, 
baseness,  and  guilt,  she  seemed  to  live  in  a  mist  of 
unreality.  When  the  pain  became  too  deep  to  be 
dreamHke  she  was  mercifully  led  back  into  the  dream 
by  the  approach  of  death.  As  she  lay  dying  there, 
all  she  had  suffered  passed  again  into  unreality. 
Nothing  remained  but  love  and  purity,  the  thrill 
when  first  she  felt  her  child,  the  prayer  to  God 
which  brought  Caponsacchi  to  her  rescue  so  that 
her  child  might  be  born,  and  lastly  the  vision  of 
perfect  union  hereafter  with  her  kindred  soul,  who, 
not  her  lover  on  earth,  would  be  her  lover  in 
eternity.  Even  her  boy,  who  had  brought  her, 
while  she  lived,  her  keenest  sense  of  reality  (and 
Browning's  whole  treatment  of  her  motherhood, 
from  the  moment  she  knew  she  was  in  child,  till 
the  hour  when  the  boy  lay  in  her  arms,  is  as  true  and 
tender  as  if  his  wife  had  filled  his  soul  while  he 


362  BROWNING 

wrote),  even  her  boy  fades  away  into  the  dream. 
It  is  true  she  was  dying,  and  there  is  no  dream  so 
deep  as  dying.  Yet  it  was  bold  of  Browning,  and 
profoundly  imagined  by  him,  to  make  the  child 
disappear,  and  to  leave  the  woman  at  last  alone 
with  the  thought  and  the  spiritual  passion  of  her 
union  with  Caponsacchi  — 

O  lover  of  my  life,  O  soldier  saint, 

No  work  begun  shall  ever  pause  for  death. 

It  is  the  love  of  Percival's  sister  for  Galahad. 

It  is  not  that  she  is  naturally  a  dreamer,  that 
she  would  not  have  felt  and  enjoyed  the  realities 
of  earth.  Her  perceptions  are  keen,  her  nature 
expansive.  Browning,  otherwise,  would  not  have 
cared  for  her.  It  was  only  when  she  was  involved 
in  evil,  like  an  angel  in  hell  (a [wolf's  arm  round 
her  throat  and  a  snake  curled  over  her  feet),  that 
she  seemed  to  be  dreaming,  not  living.  It  was 
incredible  to  her  that  such  things  should  be  reality. 
Yet  even  the  dream  called  the  hidden  powers  of  her 
soul  into  action.  In  realising  these  as  against  evil 
she  is  not  the  dreamer.  Her  fortitude  is  unbroken  ; 
her  moral  courage  never  fails,  though  she  is  familiar 
with  fear;  her  action,  when  the  babe  has  leaped 
in  her  womb,  is  prompt,  decisive,  and  immediate  ; 
her  physical  courage,  when  her  husband  overtakes 
her  and  befouls  her  honour,  is  like  a  man's.  She 
seizes  his  sword  and  would  have  slain  the  villain. 
Then,  her  natural  goodness,  the  genius  of  her 
goodness,  gives  her  a  spiritual  penetration  which  is 
more  than  an  equivalent  in  her  for  an  educated 
intelligence.  Her  intuition  is  so  keen  that  she  sees 
through  the  false  worldliness  of  Caponsacchi  to  the 


WOMANHOOD   IN  BROWNING  363 

real  man  beneath,  and  her  few  words  call  it  into 
goodness  and  honour  for  ever.  Her  clear  sense  of 
truth  sees  all  the  threads  of  the  net  of  villany  in  which 
she  has  been  caught,  and  the  only  means  to  break 
through  it,  to  reveal  and  bring  it  into  condemnation. 
Fortitude,  courage,  intuition,  and  intelHgence  are  all 
made  to  arise  out  of  her  natural  saintliness  and 
love.     She  is  always  the  immortal  child. 

For  a  time  she  has  passed  on  earth  through  the 
realms  of  pain  ;  and  now,  stabbed  to  her  death,  she 
looks  back  on  the  passage,  and  on  all  who  have  been 
kind  and  unkind  to  her — on  the  whole  of  the 
falsehood  and  villany.  And  the  royal  love  in  her 
nature  is  the  master  of  the  moment.  She  makes 
excuses  for  Violante's  lie.  "  She  meant  well,  and 
she  did,  as  I  feel  now,  little  harm."  ''  I  am  right 
now,  quite  happy;  dying  has  purified  me  of  the 
evil  which  touched  me,  and  I  colour  ugly  things 
with  my  own  peace  and  joy.  Every  one  that 
leaves  life  sees  all  things  softened  and  bettered." 
As  to  her  husband,  she  finds  that  she  has  little  to 
forgive  him  at  the  last.  Step  by  step  she  goes 
over  all  he  did,  and  even  finds  excuses  for  him, 
and,  at  the  end,  this  is  how  she  speaks,  a  noble 
utterance  of  serene  love,  lofty  inteUigence,  of  spirit- 
ual power  and  of  the  forgiveness  of  eternity. 

For  that  most  woeful  man  my  husband  once, 
Who,  needing  respite,  still  draws  vital  breath, 
I  —  pardon  him  ?     So  far  as  lies  in  me, 
I  give  him  for  his  good  the  life  he  takes, 
Praying  the  world  will  therefore  acquiesce. 
Let  him  make  God  amends,  —  none,  none  to  me 
Who  thank  him  rather  that,  whereas  strange  fate 
Mockingly  styled  him  husband  and  me  wife, 
Himself  this  way  at  least  pronounced  divorce. 
Blotted  the  marriage  bond  :  this  blood  of  mine 


364  BROWNING 

Flies  forth  exullingly  at  any  door, 

Washes  the  parchment  white,  and  tlianks  the  blow. 

We  sliall  not  meet  in  this  world  nor  the  next, 

But  where  will  God  be  absent?     In  His  face 

Is  light,  but  in  His  shadow  healing  too : 

Let  Guido  touch  the  shadow  and  be  healed! 

And  as  my  presence  was  importunate,  — 

My  earthly  good,  temptation  and  a  snare,  — 

Nothing  about  me  but  drew  somehow  down 

His  hate  upon  me,  —  somewhat  so  excused 

Therefore,  since  hate  was  thus  the  truth  of  him,  — 

May  my  evanishment  for  evermore 

Help  further  to  relieve  the  heart  that  cast 

Such  object  of  its  natural  loathing  forth! 

So  he  was  made;  he  nowise  made  himself: 

I  could  not  love  him,  but  his  mother  did. 

His  soul  has  never  lain  beside  my  soul : 

But  for  the  unresisting  body,  —  thanks! 

He  burned  that  garment  spotted  by  the  flesh. 

Whatever  he  touched  is  rightly  ruined :  plague 

It  caught,  and  disinfection  it  had  craved 

Still  but  for  Guido ;  I  am  saved  through  him 

So  as  by  fire;  to  him — thanks  and  farewell! 

Thus,  pure  at  heart  and  sound  of  head,  a  natural, 
true  woman  in  her  childhood,  in  her  girlhood,  and 
when  she  is  tried  in  the  fire  —  by  nature  gay, 
yet  steady  in  suffering ;  brave  in  a  hell  of  fears  and 
shame ;  clear-sighted  in  entanglements  of  villany  ; 
resolute  in  self-rescue ;  seeing  and  claiming  the 
right  help  and  directing  it  rightly;  rejoicing  in  her 
motherhood  and  knowing  it  as  her  crown  of  glory, 
though  the  child  is  from  her  infamous  husband  ; 
happy  in  her  motherhood  for  one  fortnight ;  slain 
like  a  martyr ;  loving  the  true  man  with  immortal 
love;  forgiving  all  who  had  injured  her,  even  her 
murderer  ;  dying  in  f  ullf  aith  and  love  of  God,  though 
her  life  had  been  a  crucifixion ;  Pompilia  passes 
away,  and  England's  men  and  women  will  be  always 
grateful  to  Browning  for  her  creation. 


CHAPTER  XV 

BALA  USTION 

AMONG  the  women  whom  Browning  made, 
Balaustion  is  the  crown.  So  vivid  is  her 
presentation  that  she  seems  with  us  in  our  daily 
life.     And  she  also  fills  the  historical  imagination. 

One  would  easily  fall  in  love  with  her,  Hke  those 
sensitive  princes  in  the  Arabian  Nights,  who,  hear- 
ing only  of  the  charms  of  a  princess,  set  forth  to 
find  her  over  the  world.  Of  all  Browning's  women, 
she  is  the  most  luminous,  the  most  at  unity  with 
herself.  She  has  the  Greek  gladness  and  Hfe,  the 
Greek  intelligence  and  passion,  and  the  Greek 
harmony.  All  that  was  common,  prattling,  coarse, 
sensual,  and  spluttering  in  the  Greek,  (and  we 
know  from  Aristophanes  how  strong  these  lower 
elements  were  in  the  Athenian  people,)  never 
shows  a  trace  of  its  influence  in  Balaustion.  Made 
of  the  finest  clay,  exquisite  and  delicate  in  grain, 
she  is  yet  strong,  when  the  days  of  trouble  come, 
to  meet  them  nobly  and  to  change  their  sorrows 
into  spiritual  powers. 

And  the  vtise-en-schze  in  which  she  is  placed 
exalts  her  into  a  heroine,  and  adds  to  her  the 
light,  colour,  and  humanity  of  Greek  romance. 
Born  at  Rhodes,  but  of  an  Athenian  mother,  she  is 

365 


366  BROWNING 

fourteen  when  the  news  arrives  that  the  Athenian 
fleet  under  Nikias,  sent  to  subdue  Syracuse,  has 
been  destroyed,  and  the  captive  Athenians  driven  to 
labour  in  the  quarries.  All  Rhodes,  then  in  alliance 
with  Athens,  now  cries,  "  Desert  Athens,  side  with 
Sparta  against  Athens."  Balaustion  alone  resists 
the  traitorous  cry.  "  What,  throw  off  Athens,  be 
disloyal  to  the  source  of  art  and  inteUigence  — 

to  the  life  and  light 
Of  the  whole  world  worth  calling  world  at  all ! " 

And  she  spoke  so  well  that  her  kinsfolk  and 
others  joined  her  and  took  ship  for  Athens.  Now, 
a  wind  drove  them  off  their  course,  and  behind 
them  came  a  pirate  ship,  and  in  front  of  them 
loomed  the  land.  **  Is  it  Crete  }  "  they  thought ; 
"  Crete,  perhaps,  and  safety."  But  the  oars  flagged 
in  the  hands  of  the  weary  men,  and  the  pirate 
gained.  Then  Balaustion,  springing  to  the  altar  by 
the  mast,  white,  rosy,  and  uplifted,  sang  on  high 
that  song  of  vEschylus  which  saved  at  Salamis  — 

'  O  sons  of  Greeks,  go,  set  your  country  free, 
Free  your  wives,  free  your  children,  free  the  fanes 
O'  the  Gods,  your  fathers  founded,  —  sepulchres 
They  sleep  in  !     Or  save  all,  or  all  be  lost.' 

The  crew,  impassioned  by  the  girl,  answered  the 
song,  and  drove  the  boat  on,  "  churning  the  black 
water  white,"  till  the  land  shone  clear,  and  the  wide 
town  and  the  harbour,  and  lo,  'twas  not  Crete, 
but  Syracuse,  luckless  fate !  Out  came  a  galley 
from  the  port.  "  Who  are  you ;  Sparta's  friend 
or  foe } "  "  Of  Rhodes  are  we,  Rhodes  that  has 
forsaken  Athens !  " 

*'  How,  then,  that  song  we  heard  .''     All  Athens 


BALAUSTIOAT  367 

was  in  that  -^schylus.  Your  boat  is  full  of 
Athenians  —  back  to  the  pirate ;  we  want  no 
Athenians  here.  .  .  .  Yet,  stay,  that  song  was 
^schylus  ;  every  one  knows  it  —  how  about  Euri- 
pides ?  Might  you  know  any  of  his  verses? "  For 
nothing  helped  the  poor  Athenians  so  much  if  any 
of  them  had  his  mouth  stored  with 

Old  glory,  great  plays  that  had  long  ago 

Made  themselves  wings  to  fly  about  the  world,  — 

But  most  of  all  those  were  cherished  who  could 
recite  Euripides  to  Syracuse,  so  mighty  was  poetry 
in  the  ancient  days  to  make  enemies  into  friends, 
to  build,  beyond  the  wars  and  jealousies  of  the 
world,  a  land  where  all  nations  are  one. 

At  this  the  captain  cried :  *'  Praise  the  God,  we 
have  here  the  very  girl  who  will  fill  you  with 
Euripides,"  and  the  passage  brings  Balaustion 
into  full  light. 

Therefore,  at  mention  of  Euripides, 

The  Captain  crowed  out,  "  Euoi,  praise  the  God ! 

Oop,  boys,  bring  our  owl-shield  to  the  fore  ! 

Out  with  our  Sacred  Anchor!     Here  she  stands, 

Balaustion !     Strangers,  greet  the  lyric  girl ! 

Euripides  ?     Babai !  what  a  word  there  'scaped 

Your  teeth's  enclosure,  quoth  my  grandsire's  song  ! 

Why,  fast  as  snow  in  Thrace,  the  voyage  through, 

Has  she  been  falling  thick  in  flakes  of  him ! 

Frequent  as  figs  at  Kaunos,  Kaunians  said. 

Balaustion,  stand  forth  and  confirm  my  speech  ! 

Now  it  was  some  whole  passion  of  a  play ; 

Now,  peradventure,  but  a  honey-drop 

That  slipt  its  comb  i'  the  chorus.     If  there  rose 

A  star,  before  I  could  determine  steer 

Southward  or  northward  —  if  a  cloud  surprised 

Heaven,  ere  I  fairly  hollaed  '  Furl  the  sail ! '  — 

She  had  at  fingers'  end  both  cloud  and  star ; 

Some  thought  that  perched  there,  tame  and  tuneable, 


368  BROWNING 

Fitted  with  wings,  and  still,  as  off  it  flew, 

*  So  sang  Euripides/  she  said,  '  so  sang 
The  meteoric  poet  of  air  and  sea, 
Planets  and  the  pale  populace  of  heaven, 

The  mind  of  man,  and  all  that's  made  to  soar! ' 
And  so,  although  she  has  some  other  name, 
We  only  call  her  Wild-pomegranate-flower, 
Balaustion  ;  since,  where'er  the  red  bloom  burns 
r  the  dull  dark  verdure  of  the  bounteous  tree, 
Dethroning,  in  the  Rosy  Isle,  the  rose. 
You  shall  find  food,  drink,  odour,  all  at  once  ; 
Cool  leaves  to  bind  about  an  aching  brow, 
And,  never  much  away,  the  nightingale. 
Sing  them  a  strophe,  with  the  turn-again, 
Down  to  the  verse  that  ends  all,  proverb  like, 
And  save  us,  thou  Balaustion,  bless  the  name ! " 

And  she  answered  :  "  I  will  recite  the  last  play 
he  wrote  from  first  to  last  —  Alkestis  —  his  strang- 
est, saddest,  sweetest  song." 

Then  because  Greeks  are  Greeks,  and  hearts  are  hearts. 

And  poetry  is  power,  —  they  all  outbroke 

In  a  great  joyous  laughter  with  much  love  : 

"  Thank  Herakles  for  the  good  holiday  ! 

Make  for  the  harbour  !     Row,  and  let  voice  ring, 

*  In  we  row,  bringing  more  Euripides ! ' " 

All  the  crowd,  as  they  lined  the  harbour  now, 

"  More  of  Euripides ! "  —  took  up  the  cry. 

We  landed ;  the  whole  city,  soon  astir, 

Came  rushing  out  of  gates  in  common  joy 

To  the  suburb  temple ;  there  they  stationed  me 

O'  the  topmost  step ;  and  plain  I  told  the  play, 

Just  as  I  saw  it ;  what  the  actors  said. 

And  what  I  saw,  or  thought  I  saw  the  while, 

At  our  Kameiros  theatre,  clean  scooped 

Out  of  a  hill  side,  with  the  sky  above 

And  sea  before  our  seats  in  marble  row : 

Told  it,  and,  two  days  more,  repeated  it 

Until  they  sent  us  on  our  way  again 

With  good  words  and  great  wishes. 

So,  we  see  Balaustion's  slight  figure  under  the 


BALAUSTION-  369 

blue  sky,  and  the  white  temple  of  Herakles  from 
the  steps  of  which  she  spoke  ;  and  among  the  crowd, 
looking  up  to  her  with  rapture,  the  wise  and  young 
Sicilian  who  took  ship  with  her  when  she  was  sent 
back  to  Athens,  wooed  her,  and  found  answer  before 
they  reached  Piraeus.  And  there  in  Athens  she 
and  her  lover  saw  Euripides,  and  told  the  Master 
how  his  play  had  redeemed  her  from  captivity. 
Then  they  were  married ;  and  one  day,  with  four 
of  her  girl  friends,  under  the  grape-vines  by  the 
streamlet  side,  close  to  the  temple,  Baccheion,  in 
the  cool  afternoon,  she  tells  the  tale ;  interweaving 
with  the  play  (herself  another  chorus)  what  she 
thinks,  how  she  feels  concerning  its  personages 
and  their  doings,  and  in  the  comment  discloses  her 
character.  The  woman  is  built  up  in  this  way 
for  us.  The  very  excuse  she  makes  for  her  in- 
serted words  reveals  one  side  of  her  delightful 
nature  —  her  love  of  poetry,  her  love  of  beauty, 
her  seeing  eye,  her  delicate  distinction,  her  min- 
gled humility  and  self-knowledge. 

Look  at  Baccheion's  beauty  opposite, 

The  temple  with  the  pillars  at  the  porch! 

See  you  not  something  beside  masonry.'* 

What  if  my  words  wind  in  and  out  the  stone 

As  yonder  ivy,  the  God's  parasite  ? 

Though  they  leap  all  the  way  the  pillar  leads, 

Festoon  about  the  marble,  foot  to  frieze, 

And  serpentiningly  enrich  the  roof. 

Toy  with  some  few  bees  and  a  bird  or  two, — 

What  then?     The  column  holds  the  cornice  up, 

As  the  ivy  is  to  the  pillar  that  supports  the  cor- 
nice, so  are  her  words  to  the  Alkestis  on  which  she 
comments. 

That   is    her  charming  way.     She  also  is,  like 

2  B 


370  BROWNING 

Pompilia,  young.  But  no  contrast  can  be  greater 
than  that  between  Pompilia  at  seventeen  years  of 
age,  and  Balaustion  at  fifteen.  In  Greece,  as  in 
Italy,  women  mature  quickly.  Balaustion  is  born 
with  that  genius  which  has  the  experience  of  age  in 
youth  and  the  fire  of  youth  in  age.  Pompilia  has 
the  genius  of  pure  goodness,  but  she  is  uneducated, 
her  intelligence  is  untrained,  and  her  character  is 
only  developed  when  she  has  suffered.  Balaustion, 
on  the  contrary,  has  all  the  Greek  capacity,  a 
thorough  education,  and  that  education  also  which 
came  in  the  air  of  that  time  to  those  of  the 
Athenian  temper.  She  is  born  into  beauty  and 
the  knowledge  of  it,  into  high  thinking  and  keen 
feeling  ;  and  she  knows  well  why  she  thought  and 
how  she  felt.  So  finely  wrought  is  she  by  passion 
and  inteUigence  alike,  with  natural  genius  to  make 
her  powers  tenfold,  that  she  sweeps  her  kinsfolk 
into  agreement  with  her,  subdues  the  sailors  to  her 
will,  enchants  the  captain,  sings  the  whole  crew  into 
energy,  would  have,  I  believe,  awed  and  enthralled 
the  pirate,  conquers  the  Syracusans,  dehghts  the 
whole  city,  draws  a  talent  out  of  the  rich  man  which 
she  leaves  behind  her  for  the  prisoners,  is  a  dear 
friend  of  sombre  Euripides,  lures  Aristophanes,  the 
mocker,  into  seriousness,  mates  herself  with  him  in 
a  whole  night's  conversation,  and  wrings  praise 
and  honour  from  the  nimblest,  the  most  cynical, 
and  the  most  world-wise  intellect  in  Athens. 

Thus,  over  against  Pompilia,  she  is  the  image  of 
fine  culture,  held  back  from  the  foolishness  and 
vanity  of  culture  by  the  steadying  power  of  genius. 
Then  her  judgment  is  always  balanced.  Each 
thing  to  her  has  many  sides.     She  decides  moral 


BALAUSTION  371 

and  intellectual  questions  and  action  with  justice, 
but  with  mercy  to  the  wrong  opinion  and  the  wrong 
thing,  because  her  intellect  is  clear,  tolerant,  and 
forgiving  through  intellectual  breadth  and  power. 
Pompilia  is  the  image  of  natural  goodness  and  of 
its  power.  A  spotless  soul,  though  she  is  passed 
through  hell,  enables  her,  without  a  trained  intellect, 
with  ignorance  of  all  knowledge,  and  with  as  little 
vanity  as  Balaustion,  to  give  as  clear  and  firm  a 
judgment  of  right  and  wrong.  She  is  as  tolerant, 
as  full  of  excuses  for  the  wrong  thing,  as  forgiving, 
as  Balaustion,  but  it  is  by  the  power  of  goodness 
and  love  in  her,  not  by  that  of  intellect.  Browning 
never  proved  his  strength  more  than  when  he  made 
these  two,  in  vivid  contrast,  yet  in  their  depths  in 
harmony  ;  both  equal,  though  so  far  apart,  in  noble 
womanhood.  Both  are  beyond  convention;  both 
have  a  touch  of  impulsive  passion,  of  natural  wild- 
ness,  of  flower-beauty.  Both  are,  in  hours  of  crisis, 
borne  beyond  themselves,  and  mistress  of  the  hour. 
Both  mould  men,  for  their  good,  like  wax  in  their 
fingers.  But  Pompilia  is  the  white  rose,  touched 
with  faint  and  innocent  colour ;  and  Balaustion  is 
the  wild  pomegranate  flower,  burning  in  a  crimson 
of  love  among  the  dark  green  leaves  of  steady  and 
sure  thought,  her  powers  latent  till  needed,  but 
when  called  on  and  brought  to  light,  flaming  with 
decision  and  revelation. 

In  this  book  we  see  her  in  her  youth,  her  powers 
as  yet  untouched  by  heavy  sorrow.  In  the  next, 
in  Aristophanes'  Apology,  we  first  find  her  in  matured 
strength,  almost  mastering  Aristophanes;  and  after- 
wards in  the  depth  of  grief,  as  she  flies  with  her 
husband  over  the  seas  to  Rhodes,  leaving  behind 


372  BROWNING 

her  Athens,  the  city  of  her  heart,  ruined  and 
enslaved.  The  deepest  passion  in  her,  the 
patriotism  of  the  soul,  is  all  but  broken-hearted. 
Yet,  she  is  the  life  and  support  of  all  who  are  with 
her;  even  a  certain  gladness  breaks  forth  in  her, 
and  she  secures  for  all  posterity  the  intellectual 
record  of  Athenian  life  and  the  images,  wrought  to 
vitality,  of  some  of  the  greater  men  of  Athens.  So 
we  possess  her  completely.  Her  life,  her  soul,  its 
growth  and  strength,  are  laid  before  us.  To  follow 
her  through  these  two  poems  is  to  follow  their 
poetry.  Whenever  we  touch  her  we  touch  imagi- 
nation. Aristophanes'  Apology  is  illuminated  by 
Balaustion's  eyes.  A  glimpse  here  and  there  of 
her  enables  us  to  thread  our  way  without  too  great 
weariness  through  a  thorny  undergrowth  of  modern 
and  ancient  thought  mingled  together  on  the  subject 
of  the  Apology. 

In  BalaiLStioji s  Adventure  she  tells  her  tale,  and 
recites,  as  she  did  at  Syracuse,  the  Alkestis  to  her 
four  friends.  But  she  does  more ;  she  comments 
on  it,  as  she  did  not  at  Syracuse.  The  comments 
are,  of  course.  Browning's,  but  he  means  them  also 
to  reveal  Balaustion.  They  are  touched  through- 
out with  a  woman's  thought  and  feeling,  inflamed 
by  the  poetic  genius  with  which  Browning  has 
endowed  her.  Balaustion  is  his  deliberate  picture 
of  genius,  the  great  miracle. 

The  story  of  the  Alkestis  begins  before  the  play. 
Apollo,  in  his  exile,  having  served  King  Admetos 
as  shepherd,  conceives  a  friendship  for  the  King, 
helps  him  to  his  marriage,  and  knowing  that  he  is 
doomed  to  die  in  early  life,  descends  to  hell  and 
begs  the  Fates  to  give  him  longer  life.     That  is  a 


BALAUSTIOISr  373 

motive,  holding  in  it  strange  thoughts  of  life  and 
death  and  fate,  which  pleased  Browning,  and  he 
treats  it  separately,  and  with  sardonic  humour,  in 
the  Prologue  to  one  of  his  later  volumes.  The 
Fates  refuse  to  lengthen  Admetos'  life,  unless 
some  one  love  him  well  enough  to  die  for  him. 
They  must  have  their  due  at  the  allotted  time. 

The  play  opens  when  that  time  arrives.  We  see, 
in  a  kind  of  Prologue,  Apollo  leaving  the  house 
of  Admetos  and  Death  coming  to  claim  his  victim. 
Admetos  has  asked  his  father,  mother,  relations, 
and  servants  to  die  instead  of  him.  None  will  do 
it ;  but  his  wife,  Alkestis,  does.  Admetos  accepts 
her  sacrifice.  Her  dying,  her  death,  the  sorrow 
of  Admetos  is  described  with  all  the  poignant 
humanity  of  Euripides.  In  the  meantime  Herakles 
has  come  on  the  scene,  and  Admetos,  though 
steeped  in  grief,  conceals  his  wife's  death  and 
welcomes  his  friend  to  his  house.  As  Alkestis  is 
the  heroine  of  self-sacrifice,  Admetos  is  the  hero 
of  hospitality.  Herakles  feasts,  but  the  indignant 
bearing  of  an  old  servant  attracts  his  notice,  and  he 
finds  out  the  truth.  He  is  shocked,  but  resolves  to 
attack  Death  himself,  who  is  bearing  away  Alkestis. 
He  meets  and  conquers  Death  and  brings  back 
Alkestis  alive  to  her  husband.  So  the  strong  man 
conquers  the  Fates,  whom  even  Apollo  could  not 
subdue. 

This  is  a  fine  subject.  Every  one  can  see  in  how 
many  different  ways  it  may  be  treated,  with  what 
different  conceptions,  how  variously  the  characters 
may  be  built  up,  and  what  different  ethical  and 
emotional  situations  may  be  imaginatively  treated 
in  it.     Racine  himself  thought  it  the  finest  of  the 


374  BROWNING 

Greek  subjects,  and  began  a  play  upon  it.  But  he 
died  before  he  finished  it,  and  ordered  his  manu- 
script to  be  destroyed.  We  may  well  imagine  how 
the  quiet,  stately  genius  of  Racine  would  have 
conceived  and  ordered  it ;  with  the  sincere  passion, 
held  under  restraint  by  as  sincere  a  dignity,  which 
characterised  his  exalted  style. 

Balaustion  treats  it  with  an  equal  moral  force, 
and  also  with  that  modern  moral  touch  which 
Racine  would  have  given  it;  which,  while  it  re- 
moved the  subject  at  certain  points  from  the  Greek 
morality,  would  yet  have  exalted  it  into  a  more 
spiritual  world  than  even  the  best  of  the  Greeks 
conceived.  The  commentary  of  Balaustion  is  her 
own  treatment  of  the  subject.  It  professes  to  ex- 
plain Euripides :  it  is  in  reality  a  fresh  conception 
of  the  characters  and  their  motives,  especially  of 
the  character  of  Herakles.  Her  view  of  the  cha- 
racter of  Alkestis,  especially  in  her  death,  is  not, 
I  think,  the  view  which  Euripides  took.  Her  con- 
demnation of  Admetos  is  unmodified  by  those  other 
sides  of  the  question  which  Euripides  suggests. 
The  position  Balaustion  takes  up  with  regard  to 
self-sacrifice  is  far  more  subtle,  with  its  half- 
Christian  touches,  than  the  Greek  simplicity  would 
have  conceived.  Finally,  she  feels  so  strongly  that 
the  subject  has  not  been  adequately  conceived  that, 
at  the  end,  she  recreates  for  herself.  Even  at  the 
beginning  she  rebuilds  the  Euripidean  matter. 
When  Apollo  and  Death  meet,  Balaustion  conceives 
the  meeting  for  herself.  She  images  the  dread 
Apollo  as  somewhat  daunted,  and  images  the  divine 
meeting  of  these  two  with  modern,  not  Greek 
imagination.     It  is  Uke  the  meeting,  she  thinks,  of 


BALAUSTION  375 

a  ruined  eagle,  caught  as  he  swooped  in  a  gorge, 
half  heedless,  yet  terrific,  with  a  lion,  the  haunter 
of  the  gorge,  the  lord  of  the  ground,  who  pauses, 
ere  he  try  the  worst  with  the  frightful,  unfamiliar 
creature,  known  in  the  shadows  and  silences  of  the 
sky  but  not  known  here.  It  is  the  first  example 
we  have  of  Balaustion's  imaginative  power  working 
for  itself.  There  is  another,  farther  on,  where  she 
stays  her  recitation  to  describe  Death's  rush  in  on 
Alkestis  when  the  dialogue  between  him  and  Apollo 
is  over  — 

And,  in  the  fire-flash  of  the  appalling  sword, 
The  uprush  and  the  outburst,  the  onslaught 
Of  Death''s  portentous  passage  through  the  door, 
Apollon  stood  a  pitying  moment-space  : 
I  caught  one  last  gold  gaze  upon  the  night, 
Nearing  the  world  now  :  and  the  God  was  gone, 
And  mortals  left  to  deal  with  misery. 

So  she  speaks,  as  if  she  saw  more  than  Euripides, 
as  if  to  her  the  invisible  were  visible  —  as  it  was. 
To  see  the  eternal  unseen  is  the  dower  of  imagina- 
tion in  its  loftiest  mood. 

She  is  as  much  at  home  with  the  hero  of  earth, 
the  highest  manhood,  as  she  is  with  the  gods. 
When  Herakles  comes  on  the  scene  she  cannot 
say  enough  about  him ;  and  she  conceives  him 
apart  from  the  Herakles  of  Euripides.  She  paints 
in  him,  and  Browning  paints  through  her,  the  idea 
of  the  full,  the  perfect  man ;  and  it  is  not  the  ideal 
of  the  cultivated,  of  the  sensitive  folk.  It  is  more 
also  a  woman's  than  a  man's  ideal.  For,  now, 
suddenly,  into  the  midst  of  the  sorrow  of  the  house, 
every  one  waiHng,  life  full  of  penury  and  inactivity, 
there  leaps  the  ''  gay  cheer  of  a  great  voice,"  the 


376  BROWNING 

full  presence  of  the  hero,  his  "  weary  happy  face, 
half  god,  half  man,  which  made  the  god-part  god 
the  more."  His  very  voice,  which  smiled  at  sorrow, 
and  his  look,  which,  saying  sorrow  was  to  be  con- 
quered, proclaimed  to  all  the  world  ''  My  Hfe  is 
in  my  hand  to  give  away,  to  make  men  glad," 
seemed  to  dry  up  all  misery  at  its  source,  for  his 
love  of  man  makes  him  always  joyful.  When 
Admetos  opened  the  house  to  him,  and  did  not  tell 
him  of  his  wife's  death,  Balaustion  comments 
"  The  hero,  all  truth,  took  him  at  his  word,  and 
then  strode  off  to  feast."  He  takes,  she  thought, 
the  present  rest,  the  physical  food  and  drink  as 
frankly  as  he  took  the  mighty  labours  of  his  fate. 
And  she  rejoices  as  much  in  his  jovial  warmth,  his 
joy  in  eating  and  drinking  and  singing,  and  festivity, 
as  in  his  heroic  soul.  They  go  together,  these 
things,  in  a  hero. 

Making  the  most  o'  the  minute,  that  the  soul 
And  body,  strained  to  height  a  minute  since, 
Might  He  relaxed  in  joy,  this  breathing  space, 
For  man's  sake  more  than  ever ; 

He  slew  the  pest  of  the  marish,  yesterday ;  to- 
day he  takes  his  fill  of  food,  wine,  song,  and 
flowers ;  to-morrow  he  will  slay  another  plague  of 
mankind.  _ 

So  she  sings,  praising  aloud  the  heroic  temper, 
as  mighty  in  the  natural  joys  of  natural  hfe,  in  the 
strength  and  honour  of  the  body,  as  in  the  saving 
of  the  world  from  pain  and  evil.  But  this  pleasure 
of  the  senses,  though  in  the  great  nature,  is  in  it 
under  rule,  and  the  moment  Herakles  hears  of 
Alkestis  dead,  he  casts  aside,  in  "  a  splendour  of 
resolve,"  the  feast,  wine,  song,  and  garlands,  and 


BALAUSTION'  377 

girds  himself  to  fight  with  Death  for  her  rescue. 

And  Balaustion,  looking  after  him  as  he  goes,  cries 

out  the  judgment  of  her  soul  on  all  heroism.     It  is 

Browning's  judgment  also,  one  of  the  deepest  things 

in  his  heart;  a  constant  motive  in  his  poetry,  a 

master-thought  in  his  life. 

Gladness  be  with  thee,  Helper  of  our  world! 

I  think  this  is  the  authentic  sign  and  seal 

Of  Godship,  that  it  ever  waxes  glad, 

And  more  glad,  until  gladness  blossoms,  bursts 

Into  a  rage  to  suffer  for  mankind, 

And  recommence  at  sorrow  :  drops  like  seed 

After  the  blossom,  ultimate  of  all. 

Say,  does  the  seed  scorn  earth  and  seek  the  sun? 

Surely  it  has  no  other  end  and  aim 

Than  to  drop,  once  more  die  into  the  ground, 

Taste  cold  and  darkness  and  oblivion  there  : 

And  thence  rise,  tree-like  grow  through  pain  to  joy, 

More  joy  and  most  joy,  —  do  man  good  again. 

That  is  the  truth  Browning  makes  this  woman 
have  the  insight  to  reveal.  Gladness  of  soul,  be- 
coming at  one  with  sorrow  and  death  and  rising 
out  of  them  the  conqueror,  but  always  rejoicing,  in 
itself,  in  the  joy  of  the  universe  and  of  God,  is  the 
root-heroic  quality. 

Then  there  is  the  crux  of  the  play  —  Alkestis  is 
to  die  for  Admetos,  and  does  it.  What  of  the  con- 
duct of  Admetos  t  What  does  Balaustion,  the 
woman,  think  of  that }  She  thinks  Admetos  is  a 
poor  creature  for  having  allowed  it.  When  Alkestis 
is  brought  dying  on  the  stage,  and  Admetos  follows, 
mourning  over  her,  Balaustion  despises  him,  and 
she  traces  in  the  speech  of  Alkestis,  which  only 
relates  to  her  children's  fate  and  takes  no  notice  of 
her  husband's  protestations,  that  she  has  judged  her 
husband,  that  love  is  gone  in  sad  contempt,  that  all 


378  BROWNING 

Admetos  has  given  her  is  now  paid  for,  that  her 
death  is  a  business  transaction  which  has  set  her  free 
to  think  no  more  about  him,  only  of  her  children. 
For,  what  seems  most  pertinent  for  him  to  say,  if 
he  loved,  ''Take,  O  Fates,  your  promise  back,  and 
take  my  life,  not  hers,"  he  does  not  say.  That  is 
not  really  the  thought  of  Euripides. 

Then,  and  this  is  subtly  but  not  quite  justly 
wrought  into  Euripides  by  Balaustion,  she  traces 
through  the  play  the  slow  awakening  of  the  soul 
of  Admetos  to  the  low-hearted  thing  he  had  done. 
He  comes  out  of  the  house,  having  disposed  all 
things  duteously  and  fittingly  round  the  dead,  and 
Balaustion  sees  in  his  grave  quietude  that  the 
truth  is  dawning  on  him  ;  when  suddenly  Pheres, 
his  father,  who  had  refused  to  die  for  him,  comes 
to  lay  his  offering  on  the  bier.  This,  Balaustion 
thinks,  plucks  Admetos  back  out  of  unselfish 
thought  into  that  lower  atmosphere,  in  which  he 
only  sees  his  own  advantage  in  the  death  of 
Alkestis ;  and  in  which  he  now  bitterly  reproaches 
his  father  because  he  did  not  die  to  save  Alkestis. 
And  the  reproach  is  the  more  bitter  because  —  and 
this  Balaustion,  with  her  subtle  morality,  suggests 
—  an  undernote  of  conscience  causes  him  to  see 
his  own  baser  self,  now  prominent  in  his  acceptance 
of  Alkestis'  sacrifice,  finished  and  hardened  in  the 
temper  of  his  father — young  Admetos  in  old  Pheres. 
He  sees  with  dread  and  pain  what  he  may  become 
when  old.  This  hatred  of  himself  in  his  father  is, 
Balaustion  thinks,  the  source  of  his  extreme  violence 
with  his  father.  She,  with  the  Greek  sense  of  what 
was  due  to  Nature,  seeks  to  excuse  this  unfitting 
scene.     Euripides  has  gone  too  far  for  her.     She 


BALAUSTION-  379 

thinks  that,  if  Sophocles  had  to  do  with  the  matter, 
he  would  have  made  the  Chorus  explain  the  man. 

But  the  unnatural  strife  would  not  have  been 
explained  by  Sophocles  as  Balaustion  explains  it. 
That  fine  ethical  twist  of  hers  —  "that  Admetos 
hates  himself  in  his  father,"  is  too  modern  for  a 
Greek.  It  has  the  casuistical  subtlety  which  the 
over-developed  conscience  of  the  Christian  Church 
encouraged.  It  is  intellectual,  too,  rather  than  real, 
metaphysical  more  than  moral.  Browning  rather 
than  Sophocles.  Nor  do  I  believe  that  a  Rhodian 
girl,  even  with  all  Athens  at  the  back  of  her  brain, 
would  have  conceived  it  at  all.  Then  Balaustion 
makes  another  comment  on  the  situation,  in 
which  there  is  more  of  Browning  than  of  her- 
self. "Admetos,"  she  says,  "has  been  kept  back 
by  the  noisy  quarrel  from  seeing  into  the  truth  of 
his  own  conduct,  as  he  was  on  the  point  of  doing, 
for  'with  the  low  strife  comes  the  little  mind.'" 
But  when  his  father  is  gone,  and  Alkestis  is  borne 
away,  then,  in  the  silence  of  the  house  and  the 
awful  stillness  in  his  own  heart,  he  sees  the  truth. 
His  shame,  the  whole  woe  and  horror  of  his  failure 
in  love,  break,  like  a  toppling  wave,  upon  him,  and 
the  drowned  truth,  so  long  hidden  from  him  by 
self,  rose  to  the  surface,  and  appalled  him  by  its 
dead  face.  His  soul  in  seeing  true,  is  saved,  yet 
so  as  by  fire.  At  this  moment  Herakles  comes  in, 
leading  Alkestis,  redeemed  from  death ;  and  find- 
ing, so  Balaustion  thinks,  her  husband  restored  to 
his  right  mind. 

But,  then,  we  ask,  how  Alkestis,  having  found 
him  fail,  will  live  with  him  again,  how  she,  having 
topped   nobility,  will  endure  the  memory  of   the 


38o  BROWNING 

ignoble  in  him  ?  That  would  be  the  interesting 
subject,  and  the  explanation  Euripides  suggests 
does  not  satisfy  Balaustion.  The  dramatic  situa- 
tion is  unfinished.  Balaustion,  with  her  fine  instinct, 
feels  that,  to  save  the  subject,  it  ought  to  be  other- 
wise treated,  and  she  invents  a  new  Admetos,  a 
new  Alkestis.  She  has  heard  that  Sophocles  meant 
to  make  a  new  piece  of  the  same  matter,  and  her 
balanced  judgment,  on  which  Browning  insists  so 
often,  makes  her  say,  "  That  is  well.  One  thing  has 
many  sides  ;  but  still,  no  good  supplants  a  good,  no 
beauty  undoes  another ;  still  I  will  love  the  Alkestis 
which  I  know.  Yet  I  have  so  drunk  this  poem,  so 
satisfied  with  it  my  heart  and  soul,  that  I  feel  as  if  I, 
too,  might  make  a  new  poem  on  the  same  matter." 

Ah,  that  brave 
Bounty  of  poets,  the  one  royal  race 
That  ever  was,  or  will  be,  in  this  world  ! 
They  give  no  gift  that  bounds  itself  and  ends 
r  the  giving  and  the  taking :  theirs  so  breeds 
r  the  heart  and  soul  o'  the  taker,  so  transmutes 
The  man  who  only  was  a  man  before, 
That  he  grows  godlike  in  his  turn,  can  give  — 
He  also  :  share  the  poet's  privilege, 
Bring  forth  new  good,  new  beauty,  from  the  old. 

And  she  gives  her  conception  of  the  subject,  and 
it  further  unfolds  her  character. 

When  Apollo  served  Admetos,  the  noble  nature 
of  the  God  so  entered  into  him  that  all  the  beast 
was  subdued  in  the  man,  and  he  became  the  ideal 
King,  living  for  the  ennoblement  of  his  people. 
Yet,  while  doing  this  great  work,  he  is  to  die,  still 
young,  and  he  breaks  out,  in  a  bitter  calm,  against 
the  fate  which  takes  him  from  the  work  of  his  life. 

"  Not  so,"  answers  Alkestis,  "  I  knew  what  was 


BALAUSTION  381 

coming,  and  though  Apollo  urged  me  not  to  disturb 
the  course  of  things,  and  not  to  think  that  any 
death  prevents  the  march  of  good  or  ends  a  life, 
yet  he  yielded  ;  and  I  die  for  you  —  all  happiness." 

"  It  shall  never  be,"  replies  Admetos  ;  *'  our  two 
lives  are  one.  But  I  am  the  body,  thou  art  the 
soul ;  and  the  body  shall  go,  and  not  the  soul.  I 
claim  death." 

''No,"  answered  Alkestis;  "the  active  power  to 
rule  and  weld  the  people  into  good  is  in  the  man. 
Thou  art  the  acknowledged  power.  And  as  to  the 
power  which,  thou  sayest,  I  give  thee,  as  to  the  soul 
of  me  —  take  it,  I  pour  it  into  thee.  Look  at  me." 
And  as  he  looks,  she  dies,  and  the  King  is  left  — 
still  twofold  as  before,  with  the  soul  of  Alkestis  in 
him  —  himself  and  her.  So  is  Fate  cheated,  and 
Alkestis  in  Admetos  is  not  dead.  A  passage  follows 
of  deHcate  and  simple  poetry,  written  by  Browning 
in  a  manner  in  which  I  would  he  had  oftener  written. 
To  read  it  is  to  regret  that,  being  able  to  do  this,  he 
chose  rather  to  write,  from  time  to  time,  as  if  he 
were  hewing  his  way  through  tangled  underwood. 
No  lovelier  image  of  Proserpina,  has  been  made  in 
poetry,  not  even  in  Tennyson's  Demeter,  than  this  — 

And  even  while  it  lay,  i'  the  look  of  him, 

Dead,  the  dimmed  body,  bright  Alkestis'  soul 

Had  penetrated  through  the  populace 

Of  ghosts,  was  got  to  Kor^,  — throned  and  crowned 

The  pensive  queen  o'  the  twilight,  where  she  dwells 

For  ever  in  a  muse,  but  half  away 

From  flowery  earth  she  lost  and  hankers  for, — 

And  there  demanded  to  become  a  ghost 

Before  the  time. 

Whereat  the  softened  eyes 
Of  the  lost  maidenhood  that  lingered  still 
Straying  among  the  flowers  in  Sicily, 


382  BROWNING 

Sudden  was  startled  back  to  Hades^  throne 
By  that  demand  :  broke  through  humanity 
Into  the  orbed  omniscience  of  a  God, 
Searched  at  a  glance  Alkestis  to  the  soul 
And  said  .  .  . 

"  Hence,  thou  deceiver  !     This  is  not  to  die, 
If,  by  the  very  death  which  mocks  me  now, 
The  life,  that's  left  behind  and  past  my  power, 
Is  formidably  doubled  ..." 

And  so,  before  the  embrace  relaxed  a  whit. 
The  lost  eyes  opened,  still  beneath  the  look ; 
And  lo,  Alkestis  was  alive  again, 
And  of  Admetos'  rapture  who  shall  speak  ? 

The  old  conception  has  more  reality.  This  is  in 
the  vague  world  of  modern  psychical  imagination. 
Nevertheless  it  has  its  own  beauty,  and  it  enlarges 
Browning's  picture  of  the  character  of  Balaustion. 

Her  character  is  still  further  enlarged  in  Aris- 
tophanes' Apology.  That  poem,  if  we  desire  in- 
tellectual exercise,  illuminated  by  flashings  of 
imagination,  is  well  worth  reading,  but  to  com- 
prehend it  fully,  one  must  know  a  great  deal  of 
Athenian  life  and  of  the  history  of  the  Comic 
Drama.  It  is  the  defence  by  Aristophanes  of  his 
idea  of  the  business,  the  method,  and  the  use  of 
Comedy.  How  far  what  he  says  is  Browning 
speaking  for  Aristophanes,  and  how  far  it  is  Brown- 
ing speaking  for  himself,  is  hard  to  tell.  And  it 
would  please  him  to  leave  that  purposely  obscure. 
What  is  alive  and  intense  in  the  poem  is,  first,  the 
realisation  of  Athenian  life  in  several  scenes, 
pictured  with  all  Browning's  astonishing  force  of 
presentation,  as,  for  instance,  the  feast  after  the 
play,  and  the  grim  entrance  of  Sophocles,  black 
from  head  to  foot,  among  the  glittering  and  drunken 
revellers,  to  announce  the  death  of  Euripides. 


BALAUSTION  383 

Secondly,  there  is  the    presentation  of    Aristo- 
phanes.    Browning  has  created  him  for  us  — 

And  no  ignoble  presence !     On  the  bulge 

Of  the  clear  baldness,  —  all  his  head  one  brow,  — 

True,  the  veins  swelled,  blue  network,  and  there  surged 

A  red  from  cheek  to  temple,  —  then  retired 

As  if  the  dark-leaved  chaplet  damped  a  flame,  — 

Was  never  nursed  by  temperance  or  health. 

But  huge  the  eyeballs  rolled  back  native  fire, 

Imperiously  triumphant :  nostrils  wide 

Waited  their  incense ;  while  the  pursed  mouth's  pout 

Aggressive,  while  the  beak  supreme  above. 

While  the  head,  face,  nay,  pillared  throat  thrown  back, 

Beard  whitening  under  like  a  vinous  foam, 

There  made  a  glory,  of  such  insolence  — 

I  thought,  —  such  domineering  deity 

Hephaistos  might  have  carved  to  cut  the  brine 

For  his  gay  brother's  prow,  imbrue  that  path 

Which,  purpling,  recognised  the  conqueror. 

Impudent  and  majestic  :  drunk,  perhaps. 

But  that's  religion  ;  sense  too  plainly  snuffed : 

Still,  sensuality  was  grown  a  rite. 

We  see  the  man,  the  natural  man,  to  the  life. 
But  as  the  poem  goes  on,  we  company  with  his  in- 
tellect, his  soul,  with  the  struggle  of  sensualism 
with  his  knowledge  of  a  more  ideal  life ;  above  all, 
with  one,  who  indulging  the  appetites  and  senses 
of  the  natural  man,  is  yet,  at  a  moment,  their 
master.  The  coarse  chambers  of  his  nature  are 
laid  bare,  his  sensuous  pleasure  in  the  lower  forms 
of  human  life,  his  joy  in  satirising  them,  his  con- 
tempt for  the  good  or  the  ideal  life,  if  it  throw  the 
sensual  man  away.  Then,  we  are  made  to  know 
the  power  he  has  to  rise  above  this  —  without 
losing  it  —  into  the  higher  imaginative  region 
where,  for  the  time,  he  feels  the  genius  of 
Sophocles,  Euripides,  the  moral  power  of  Balaus- 


384  BROWNING 

tion,  and  the  beauty  of  the  natural  world.  Indeed, 
in  that  last  we  find  him  in  his  extant  plays.  Few 
of  the  Greeks  could  write  with  greater  exquisiteness 
of  natural  beauty  than  this  wild  poet  who  loved 
the  dunghill.  And  Browning  does  not  say  this, 
but  records  in  this  Apology  how  when  Aristophanes 
is  touched  for  an  instant  by  Balaustion's  reading  of 
the  Herakles,  and  seizing  the  psalterion  sings  the 
song  of  Thamuris  marching  to  his  trial  with  the 
Muses  through  a  golden  autumn  morning  —  it  is 
the  glory  and  loveliness  of  Nature  that  he  sings. 
This  portraiture  of  the  poet  is  scattered  through 
the  whole  poem.  It  is  too  minute,  too  full  of  detail 
to  dwell  on  here.  It  has  a  thousand  touches  of 
life  and  intimacy.  And  it  is  perhaps  the  finest 
thing  Browning  has  done  in  portraiture  of  cha- 
racter. But  then  there  was  a  certain  sympathy  in 
Browning  for  Aristophanes.  The  natural  man  was 
never  altogether  put  aside  by  Browning. 

Lastly,  there  is  the  fresh  presentation  of  Balaus- 
tion,  of  the  matured  and  experienced  woman  whom 
we  have  known  as  a  happy  girl.  Euthycles  and 
she  are  married,  and  one  night,  as  she  is  sitting 
alone,  he  comes  in,  bringing  the  grave  news  that 
Euripides  is  dead,  but  had  proved  at  the  court  of 
Archelaos  of  Macedonia  his  usefulness  as  counsellor 
to  King  and  State,  and  his  power  still  to  sing  — 

Clashed  thence  Alkaioiu  maddened  Pent/ietis''  up ; 
Then  music  sighed  itself  away,  one  moan 
Iphigeneia  made  by  Aulis'  strand  ; 
With  her  and  music  died  Euripides. 

And  Athens,  hearing,  ceased  to  mock  and  cried 
*'  Bury  Euripides  in  Peiraios,  bring  his  body  back." 
"Ah,"  said  Balaustion,  "  Death  alters  the  point  of 


BALAUSTION  385 

view.  But  our  tribute  is  in  our  hearts ;  and  more, 
his  soul  will  now  for  ever  teach  and  bless  the  world. 

Is  not  that  day  come  ?     What  if  you  and  I 
Re-sing  the  song,  inaugurate  the  fame? 

For,  like  Herakles,  in  his  own  Alkestis,  he  now 
strides  away  (and  this  is  the  true  end  of  the  Al- 
kestis)  to  surmount  all  heights  of  destiny."  While 
she  spoke  thus,  the  Chorus  of  the  Comedy,  girls, 
boys,  and  men,  in  drunken  revel  and  led  by  Ari- 
stophanes, thundered  at  the  door  and  claimed  ad- 
mittance. Balaustion  is  drawn  confronting  them 
—  tall  and  superb,  like  Victory's  self  ;  her  warm 
golden  eyes  flashing  under  her  black  hair,  "  earth 
flesh  with  sun  fire,"  statuesque,  searching  the  crowd 
with  her  glance.  And  one  and  all  dissolved  before 
her  silent  splendour  of  reproof,  all  save  Aristo- 
phanes. She  bids  him  welcome.  "  Glory  to  the 
Poet,"  she  cries.  **  Light,  light,  I  hail  it  every- 
where ;  no  matter  for  the  murk,  that  never  should 
have  been  such  orb's  associate."  Aristophanes 
changes  as  he  sees  her ;  a  new  man  confronts  her. 

"  So ! ''  he  smiled,  "  piercing  to  my  thought  at  once, 

You  see  myself  ?     Balaustion's  fixed  regard 

Can  strip  the  proper  Aristophanes 

Of  what  our  sophists,  in  their  jargon,  style 

His  accidents  ? " 

He  confesses  her  power  to  meet  him  in  discourse, 
unfolds  his  views  and  plans  to  her,  and  having 
contrasted  himself  with  Euripides,  bids  her  use 
her  thrice-refined  refinement,  her  rosy  strength,  to 
match  his  argument.  She  claims  no  equality  with 
him,  the  consummate  creator;  but  only,  as  a  woman, 
the  love  of  all  things  lovable  with  which  to  meet 
2  c 


386  BROWNING 

him  who  has  degraded  Comedy.  She  appeals  to 
the  high  poet  in  the  man,  and  finally  bids  him 
honour  the  deep  humanity  in  Euripides.  To  prove 
it,  and  to  win  his  accord,  she  reads  the  Herakles^ 
the  last  of  Euripides. 

It  is  this  long  night  of  talk  which  Balaustion 
dictates  to  Euthyces  as  she  is  saiUng,  day  after 
day,  from  Athens  back  to  Rhodes.  The  aspect  of 
sea  and  sky,  as  they  sail,  is  kept  before  us,  for 
Balaustion  uses  its  changes  as  illustrations,  and  the 
clear  descriptions  tell,  even  more  fully  than  before, 
how  quick  this  woman  was  to  observe  natural 
beauty  and  to  correlate  it  with  humanity.  Here 
is  one  example.  In  order  to  describe  a  change  in 
the  temper  of  Aristophanes  from  wild  licence  to 
momentary  gravity,  Balaustion  seizes  on  a  cloud- 
incident  of  the  voyage —  Euthyces,  she  cries, 

..."  o^er  the  boat  side,  quick,  what  change, 

Watch  —  in  the  water  !     But  a  second  since, 

It  laughed  a  ripply  spread  of  sun  and  sea, 

Ray  fused  with  wave,  to  never  disunite. 

Now,  sudden,  all  the  surface  hard  and  black, 

Lies  a  quenched  light,  dead  motion  :  what  the  cause? 

Look  up,  and  lo,  the  menace  of  a  cloud 

Has  solemnised  the  sparkling,  spoiled  the  sport! 

Just  so,  some  overshadow,  some  new  care 

Stopped  all  the  mirth  and  mocking  on  his  face. 

Her  feehng  for  Nature  is  as  strong  as  her  feeling 
for  man,  and  both  are  woven  together. 

All  her  powers  have  now  ripened,  and  the  last 
touch  has  been  given  to  them  by  her  ideal  sorrow 
for  Athens,  the  country  of  her  soul,  where  high 
intelligence  and  imagination  had  created  worlds. 
She  leaves  it  now,  ruined  and  degraded,  and  the 
passionate  outbreak  of  her  patriotic  sorrow  with 


BALAUSTION  387 

which  the  poem  opens  lifts  the  character  and  im- 
agination of  Balaustion  into  spiritual  splendour. 
Athens,  "  hearted  in  her  heart,"  has  perished 
ignobly.  Not  so,  she  thinks,  ought  this  beauty 
of  the  world  to  have  died,  its  sea-walls  razed  to 
the  ground  to  the  fluting  and  singing  of  harlots  ; 
but  in  some  vast  overwhelming  of  natural  energies 

—  in  the  embrace  of  fire  to  join  the  gods ;  or  in  a 
sundering  of  the  earth,  when  the  Acropolis  should 
have  sunken  entire  and  risen  in  Hades  to  console 
the  ghosts  with  beauty ;  or  in  the  multitudinous 
over-swarming  of  ocean.  This  she  could  have 
borne,  but,  thinking  of  what  has  been,  of  the  mis- 
ery and  disgrace,  *' Oh,"  she  cries,  "bear  me  away 

—  wind,  wave,  and  bark  !  "  But  Browning  does  not 
leave  Balaustion  with  only  this  deep  emotion  in  her 
heart.  He  gives  her  the  spiritual  passion  of  genius. 
She  is  swept  beyond  her  sorrow  into  that  invisible 
world  where  the  soul  lives  with  the  gods,  with  the 
pure  Ideas  of  justice,  truth,  and  love  ;  where  im- 
mortal life  awaits  the  disembodied  soul  and  we 
shall  see  Euripides.  In  these  high  thoughts  she 
will  outlive  her  sorrow. 

Why  should  despair  be?     Since,  distinct  above 

Man's  wickedness  and  folly,  flies  the  wind 

And  floats  the  cloud,  free  transport  for  our  soul 

Out  of  its  fleshly  durance  dim  and  low,  — 

Since  disembodied  soul  anticipates 

(Thought-borne  as  now,  in  rapturous  unrestraint) 

Above  all  crowding,  crystal  silentness, 

Above  all  noise,  a  silver  solitude  :  — 

Surely,  where  thought  so  bears  soul,  soul  in  time 

May  permanently  bide,  '*  assert  the  wise," 

There  live  in  peace,  there  work  in  hope  once  more  — 

O  nothing  doubt,  Philemon!     Greed  and  strife, 

Hatred  and  cark  and  care,  what  place  have  they 


388  BROWNING 

In  yon  blue  liberality  of  heaven? 

How  the  sea  helps!     How  rose-smit  earth  will  rise 

Breast-high  thence,  some  bright  morning,  and  be  Rhodes! 

Heaven,  earth,  and  sea,  my  warrant —  in  their  name, 

Believe — o'er  falsehood,  truth  is  surely  sphered, 

O'er  ugliness  beams  beauty,  o'er  this  world 

Extends  that  realm  where,  "  as  the  wise  assert," 

Philemon,  thou  shalt  see  Euripides 

Clearer  than  mortal  sense  perceived  the  man! 

We  understand  that  she  has  drunk  deep  of 
Socrates,  that  her  spiritual  sense  reached  onward 
to  the  Platonic  Socrates.  In  this  supersensuous 
world  of  thought  she  is  quieted  out  of  the  weak- 
ness which  made  her  miserable  over  the  fall  of 
Athens ;  and  in  the  quiet,  Browning,  who  will  lift 
his  favourite  into  perfectness,  adds  to  her  spiritual 
imagination  the  dignity  of  that  moral  judgment 
which  the  intellect  of  genius  gathers  from  the  facts 
of  history.  In  spite  of  her  sorrow,  she  grasps  the 
truth  that  there  was  justice  in  the  doom  of  Athens. 
Let  justice  have  its  way.  Let  the  folk  die  who 
pulled  her  glory  down.  This  is  her  prophetic 
strain,  the  strength  of  the  Hebrew  in  the  Greek. 

And  then  the  prophet  in  the  woman  passes,  and 
the  poet  in  her  takes  the  lyre.  She  sees  the  splen- 
did sunset.  Why  should  its  extravagance  of  glory 
run  to  waste  .''  Let  me  build  out  of  it  a  new  Athens, 
quarry  out  the  golden  clouds  and  raise  the  Acropo- 
lis, and  the  rock-hewn  Place  of  Assembly,  whence 
new  orators  may  thunder  over  Greece ;  and  the 
theatre  where  ^schylus,  Sophocles,  Euripides, 
god-like  still,  may  contend  for  the  prize.  Yet — and 
there  is  a  further  change  of  thought  — yet  that  may 
not  be.  To  build  that  poetic  vision  is  to  slip  away 
from  reality,  and  the  true  use  of  it.      The  tragedy 


BALAUSTION-  389 

is  there  —  irrevocable.  Let  it  sink  deep  in  us  till 
we  see  Rhodes  shining  over  the  sea.  So  great,  so 
terrible,  so  piteous  it  is,  that,  dwelt  on  in  the  soul 
and  seen  in  memory,  it  will  do  for  us  what  the 
great  tragedians  made  their  tragic  themes  do  for 
their  hearers.  It  will  purify  the  heart  by  pity  and 
terror  from  the  baseness  and  littleness  of  life.  Our 
small  hatreds,  jealousies,  and  prides,  our  petty 
passions  will  be  rebuked,  seem  nothing  in  its 
mighty  sorrow. 

What  else  in  life  seems  piteous  any  more 
After  such  pity,  or  proves  terrible 
Beside  such  terror ; 

This  is  the  woman  —  the  finest  creature  Brown- 
ing drew,  young  and  fair  and  stately,  with  her  dark 
hair  and  amber  eyes,  lovely  —  the  wild  pomegranate 
flower  of  a  girl — as  keen,  subtle,  and  true  of  intellect 
as  she  is  lovely,  able  to  comment  on  and  check 
Euripides,  to  conceive  a  new  play  out  of  his  subject, 
to  be  his  dearest  friend,  to  meet  on  equality  Aristo- 
phanes ;  so  full  of  lyric  sympathy,  so  full  of  eager 
impulse  that  she  thrills  the  despairing  into  action, 
enslaves  a  city  with  her  eloquence,  charms  her 
girl-friends  by  the  Ilissus,  and  so  sends  her  spirit 
into  her  husband  that,  when  the  Spartans  advise 
the  razing  of  Athens  to  the  ground,  he  saves 
the  city  by  those  famous  lines  of  Euripides,  of 
which  Milton  sang ;  so  at  one  with  natural  beauty, 
with  all  beauty,  that  she  makes  it  live  in  the 
souls  of  men ;  so  clear  in  judgment  that  she 
sees  the  right  even  when  it  seems  lost  in  the 
wrong,  that  she  sees  the  justice  of  the  gods  in  the 
ruin  of  the  city  she  most  loved ;  so  poetic  of  temper 


390  BROWNING 

that  everything  speaks  to  her  of  life,  that  she 
acknowledges  the  poetry  which  rises  out  of  the 
foulness  she  hates  in  Aristophanes,  that  she  loves 
all  humanity,  bad  or  good,  and  Euripides  chiefly 
because  of  his  humanity ;  so  spiritual,  that  she  can 
soar  out  of  her  most  overwhelming  sorrow  into  the 
stormless  world  where  the  gods  breathe  pure  thought 
and  for  ever  love  ;  and,  abiding  in  its  peace,  use  the 
g-riefs  of  earth  for  the  ennoblement  of  the  Hfe  of 
men,  because  in  all  her  spiritual  apartness,  however 
far  it  bear  her  from  earth,  she  never  loses  her  close 
sympathy  with  the  fortunes  of  mankind.  Nay,  from 
her  lofty  station  she  is  the  teacher  of  truth  and  love 
and  justice,  in  splendid  prophecy.  It  is  with  an 
impassioned  exaltation,  worthy  of  Sibyl  and  Pytho- 
ness in  one,  of  divine  wisdom  both  Roman  and 
Greek,  that  she  cries  to  the  companions  of  her 
voyage  words  which  embody  her  soul  and  the  soul 
of  all  the  wise  and  loving  of  the  earth,  when  they 
act  for  men  ;  bearing  their  action,  thought,  and 
feeling  beyond  man  to  God  in  man  — 

Speak  to  the  infinite  intelligence, 
Sing  to  the  everlasting  sympathy  ! 


w 


CHAPTER   XVI 

THE  RING  AND    THE  BOOK 

'HEN  Browning  published  The  Ring  and  the 
Book,  he  was  nearly  fifty  years  old.     All 
his  powers  (except  those  which  create  the  lyric)  are 
used  therein  with  mastery  ;  and  the  ease  with  which 
he  writes  is  not  more  remarkable  than  the  exultant 
pleasure  which  accompanies  the  ease.     He  has,  as 
an  artist,  a  hundred  tools  in  hand,  and  he  uses  them 
with  certainty  of  execution.     The  wing  of  his  in- 
vention does  not  falter  through  these  twelve  books, 
nor  droop  below  the  level  at  which  he  began  them  ; 
and  the  epilogue  is  written  with  as  much  vigour  as 
the  prologue.     The  various  books  demand  various 
powers.    In  each  book  the  powers  are  proportionate 
to  the  subject ;  but  the  mental  force  behind  each 
exercise  of  power  is  equal  throughout.     He  writes 
as  well  when  he  has  to  make  the  guilty  soul  of 
Guido  speak,  as  when  the  innocence  of  Pompilia 
tells  her  story.      The  gain-serving  lawyers,  each 
distinctly  isolated,  tell  their  worldly  thoughts  as 
clearly  as  Caponsacchi  reveals  his  redeemed  and 
spirituaUsed  soul.     The  parasite  of  an  aristocratic 
and  thoughtless  society  in  Tertium  Qnidi^  not  more 
vividly  drawn  than  the  Pope,  who  has  left  in  his  old 
age  the  conventions  of   society  behind  him,  and 

391 


392  BROWNING 

speaks  in  his  silent  chamber  face  to  face  with  God. 
And  all  the  minor  characters,  of  whom  there  are  a 
great  number,  ranging  from  children  to  old  folk, 
from  the  peasant  to  the  Cardinal,  through  every 
class  of  society  in  Italy — are  drawn,  even  when  they 
are  slashed  out  in  only  three  Hnes,  with  such  force, 
certainty,  colour,  and  life  that  we  know  them  better 
than  our  friends.  The  variousness  of  the  product 
would  seem  to  exclude  an  equality  of  excellence  in 
drawing  and  invention.  But  it  does  not.  It 
reveals  and  confirms  it.  The  poem  is  a  miracle  of 
intellectual  power. 

This  great  length,  elaborate  detail,  and  the  repeti- 
tion so  many  times  of  the  same  story,  would 
naturally  suggest  to  an  intending  reader  that  the 
poem  might  be  wearisome.  Browning,  suspecting 
this,  and  in  mercy  to  a  public  who  does  not  care  for 
a  work  of  lojigue  haleijte,  published  it  at  first  in  four 
volumes,  with  a  month's  interval  between  each 
volume.  He  thought  that  the  story  told  afresh  by 
characters  widely  different  would  strike  new,  if  each 
book  were  read  at  intervals  of  ten  days.  There 
were  three  books  in  each  volume.  And  if  readers 
desire  to  realise  fully  the  intellectual  totir  deforce 
contained  in  telling  the  same  story  twelve  times 
over,  and  making  each  telling  interesting,  they 
cannot  do  better  than  read  the  book  as  Browning 
wished  it  to  be  read.  "■  Give  the  poem  four  months, 
and  let  ten  days  elapse  between  the  reading  of  each 
book,"  is  what  he  meant  us  to  understand.  More- 
over, to  meet  this  possible  weariness.  Browning, 
consciously,  or  probably  unconsciously,  since  genius 
does  the  right  thing  without  asking  why,  continu- 
ally used  a  trick  of  his  own  which,  at  intervals, 


THE  RING   AND   THE  BOOK  393 

stings  the  reader  into  wakefulness  and  pleasure,  and 
sends  him  on  to  the  next  page  refreshed  and  happy. 
After  fifty,  or  it  may  be  a  hundred  lines  of  somewhat 
dry  analysis,  a  vivid  illustration,  which  concentrates 
all  the  matter  of  the  previous  Hnes,  flashes  on  the 
reader  as  a  snake  might  flash  across  a  traveller's 
dusty  way  :  or  some  sudden  description  of  an  Italian 
scene  in  the  country  or  in  the  streets  of  Rome 
enlivens  the  well-known  tale  with  fresh  humanity. 
Or  a  new  character  leaps  up  out  of  the  crowd,  and 
calls  us  to  note  his  ways,  his  dress,  his  voice,  his 
very  soul  in  some  revealing  speech,  and  then  passes 
away  from  the  stage,  while  we  turn,  refreshed  (and 
indeed  at  times  we  need  refreshment),  to  the  main 
speaker,  the  leading  character. 

But  to  dwell  on  the  multitude  of  portraits  with 
which  Browning's  keen  observation,  memory,  and 
love  of  human  nature  have  embelHshed  The  Ring 
and  the  Book  belongs  to  another  part  of  this  chapter. 
At  present  the  question  rises :  "  What  place  does 
The  Ring  and  the  Book  hold  in  Browning's  develop- 
ment }''  It  holds  a  central  place.  There  was  always 
a  struggle  in  Browning  between  two  pleasures; 
pleasure  in  the  exercise  of  his  intellect  —  his  wit,  in 
the  fullest  sense  of  the  word  ;  pleasure  in  the  exer- 
cise of  his  poetic  imagination.  Sometimes  one  of 
these  had  the  upper  hand  in  his  poems,  sometimes 
the  other,  and  sometimes  both  happily  worked  to- 
gether. When  the  exercise  of  his  wit  had  the 
upper  hand,  it  tended  to  drive  out  both  imagination 
and  passion.  Intellectual  play  may  be  without  any 
emotion  except  its  delight  in  itself.  Then  its  mere 
cleverness  attracts  its  user,  and  gives  him  an  easily 
purchased  pleasure.     When  a  poet  falls  a  complete 


394  BROWNING 

victim  to  this  pleasure,  imagination  hides  her  face 
from  him,  passion  runs  away,  and  what  he  produces 
resembles,  but  is  not,  poetry.  And  Browning,  who 
had  got  perilously  near  to  the  absence  of  poetry  in 
Bishop  Blougram' s  Apology ,  succeeded  in  J/r.  Sludge , 
the  Medium,  in  losing  poetry  altogether.  In  TJie 
Ring  and  tJie  Book  there  are  whole  books,  and  long 
passages  in  its  other  books  in  which  poetry  almost 
ceases  to  exist  and  is  replaced  by  brilliant  clever- 
ness, keen  analysis,  vivid  description,  and  a  com- 
bination of  wit  and  fancy  which  is  rarely  rivalled ; 
but  no  emotion,  no  imagination  such  as  poets  use 
inflames  the  coldness  of  these  qualities  into  the 
glow  of  poetry.  The  indefinable  difference  which 
makes  imaginative  work  into  poetry  is  not  there. 
There  is  abundance  of  invention  ;  but  that,  though 
a  part  of  imagination,  belongs  as  much  to  the  art  of 
prose  as  to  the  art  of  poetry. 

Browning  could  write  thus,  out  of  his  intellect 
alone.  None  of  the  greater  poets  could.  Their 
genius  could  not  work  without  fusing  into  their 
intellectual  work  intensity  of  feeling ;  and  that  com- 
bination secured  poetic  treatment  of  their  subject. 
It  would  have  been  totally  impossible  for  Milton, 
Shakespeare,  Dante,  Vergil,  or  even  the  great  mass 
of  second-rate  poets,  to  have  written  some  of  Brown- 
ing's so-called  poetry  —  no  matter  how  they  tried. 
There  was  that  in  Browning's  nature  which  enabled 
him  to  exercise  his  intellectual  powers  alone,  without 
passion,  and  so  far  he  almost  ceases  to  deserve  the 
name  of  poet.  And  his  pleasure  in  doing  this  grew 
upon  him,  and  having  done  it  with  dazzling  power 
in  part  of  TJie  Ring  and  the  Book,  he  was  carried 
away  by  it  and  produced  a  number  of  so-called 


THE  RING   AND    THE  BOOK  395 

poems ;  terrible  examples  of  what  a  poet  can  come 
to  when  he  has  allowed  his  pleasure  in  clever 
analysis  to  tyrannise  over  him  —  Prince  HoJicnsticl- 
ScJiwaugait^  The  Inn  Album,  Red  Cotton  Night-Cap 
Country,  and  a  number  of  shorter  poems  in  the 
volumes  which  followed.  In  these,  what  Milton 
meant  by  passion,  simplicity,  and  sensuousness  were 
banished,  and  imagination  existed  only  as  it  exists 
in  a  prose  writer. 

This  condition  was  slowly  arrived  at.  It  had  not 
been  fully  reached  when  he  wrote  The  Ring  and  the 
Book.  His  poetic  powers  resisted  their  enemies  for 
many  years,  and  had  the  better  in  the  struggle.  If 
it  takes  a  long  time  to  cast  a  devil  out,  it  takes  a 
longer  time  to  depose  an  angel.  And  the  devil  may 
be  utterly  banished,  but  the  angel  never.  And 
though  the  devil  of  mere  wit  and  the  little  devils  of 
analytic  exercise  —  devils  when  they  usurp  the  throne 
in  a  poet's  soul  and  enslave  imaginative  emotion  — 
did  get  the  better  of  Browning,  it  was  only  for  a 
time.  Towards  the  end  of  his  life  he  recovered,  but 
never  as  completely  as  he  had  once  possessed  them, 
the  noble  attributes  of  a  poet.  The  evils  of  the 
struggle  clung  to  him ;  the  poisonous  pleasure  he 
had  pursued  still  affected  him ;  he  was  again  and 
again  attacked  by  the  old  malaria.  He  was  as  a 
brand  plucked  from  the  burning. 

The  Riiig  and  tJie  Book  is  the  central  point  of  this 
struggle.  It  is  full  of  emotion  and  thought  con- 
centrated on  the  subject,  and  commingled  by  imagi- 
nation to  produce  beauty.  And  whenever  this  is  the 
case,  as  in  the  books  which  treat  of  Caponsacchi 
and  Pompilia,  we  are  rejoiced  by  poetry.  In  their 
lofty  matter  of  thought  and  feeling,  in  their  simplicity 


396  BROWNING 

and  nobleness  of  spiritual  beauty,  poetry  is  domi- 
nant. In  them  also  his  intellectual  powers,  and  his 
imaginative  and  passionate  powers,  are  fused  into 
one  fire.  Nor  is  the  presentation  of  Guido  Fran- 
ceschini  under  two  faces  less  powerful,  or  that  of 
the  Pope,  in  his  meditative  silence.  But  in  these 
books  the  poetry  is  less,  and  is  mingled,  as  would 
naturally  indeed  be  the  case,  with  a  searching 
analysis,  which  intrudes  too  much  into  their  imagi- 
native work.  Over-dissection  makes  them  cold. 
In  fact,  in  fully  a  quarter  of  this  long  poem,  the 
analysing  understanding,  that  bustling  and  self- 
conscious  person,  who  plays  only  on  the  surface 
of  things  and  separates  their  elements  from  one 
another  instead  of  penetrating  to  their  centre ;  who 
is  incapable  of  seeing  the  whole  into  which  the 
various  elements  have  combined  —  is  too  masterful 
for  the  poetry.  It  is  not,  then,  imaginative,  but 
intellectual  pleasure,  which,  as  we  read,  we  gain. 

Then  again  there  is  throughout  a  great  part  of 
the  poem  a  dangerous  indulgence  of  his  wit ;  the 
amusement  of  remote  analogies ;  the  use  of  far- 
fetched illustrations  ;  quips  and  cranks  and  wanton 
wiles  of  the  reasoning  fancy  in  deviating  self- 
indulgence  ;  and  an  allusiveness  which  sets  com- 
mentators into  note-making  effervescence.  All 
these,  and  more,  which  belong  to  wit,  are  often 
quite  ungoverned,  allowed  to  disport  themselves  as 
they  please.  Such  matters  delight  the  unpoetic 
readers  of  Browning,  and  indeed  they  are  excellent 
entertainment.  But  let  us  call  them  by  their  true 
name  ;  let  us  not  call  them  poetry,  nor  mistake  their 
art  for  the  art  of  poetry.  Writing  them  in  blank 
verse  does  not  make  them  poetry.     In  Half -Rome  ^ 


THE  RING   AND    THE  BOOK  397 

in  The  Other  Half -Rome,  and  in  Terthmt  Quid,  these 
elements  of  analysis  and  wit  are  exhibited  in  three- 
fourths  of  the  verse  ;  but  the  other  fourth  —  in  de- 
scription of  scenes,  in  vivid  portraiture,  in  transient 
outbursts  out  of  which  passion,  in  glimpses,  breaks 
—  rises  into  the  realm  of  poetry.  In  the  books 
which  sketch  the  lawyers  and  their  pleadings,  there 
is  wit  in  its  finest  brilliancy,  analysis  in  its  keenest 
veracity,  but  they  are  scarcely  a  poet's  work.  The 
whole  book  is  then  a  mixed  book,  extremely  mixed. 
All  that  was  poetical  in  Browning's  previous  work  is 
represented  in  it,  and  all  the  unpoetical  elements 
which  had  gradually  been  winning  power  in  him, 
and  which  showed  themselves  previously  in  Bishop 
Bloiigram  and  Mr.  Sludge,  are  also  there  in  full 
blast.  It  was,  as  I  have  said,  the  central  battlefield 
of  two  powers  in  him.  And  when  the  The  Ring 
and  the  Book  was  finished,  the  inferior  power  had 
for  a  time  the  victory. 

To  sum  up  then.  There  are  books  in  the  poem 
where  matter  of  passion  and  matter  of  thought  are 
imaginatively  wrought  together.  There  are  others 
where  psychological  thought  and  metaphysical 
reasoning  are  dominant,  but  where  passionate  feel- 
ing has  also  a  high  place.  There  are  others  where 
analysis  and  wit  far  excel  the  elements  of  imagina- 
tive emotion ;  and  there  are  others  where  every 
kind  of  imagination  is  absent,  save  that  which  is 
consistent  throughout  and  which  never  fails  —  the 
power  of  creating  men  and  women  into  distinct 
individualities.  That  is  left,  but  it  is  a  power  which 
is  not  special  to  a  poet.  A  prose  writer  may  possess 
it  with  the  same  fulness  as  a  poet.  Carlyle  had  it 
as  remarkably  as  Browning,  or  nearly  as  remarkably. 


398  BROWNING 

He  also  had  wit  —  a  heavier  wit  than  Browning's, 
less  lambent,  less  piercing,  but  as  forcible. 

One  thing  more  may  be  said.  The  poem  is  far 
too  long,  and  the  subject  does  not  bear  its  length. 
The  long  poems  of  the  world  (I  do  not  speak  of 
those  by  inferior  poets)  have  a  great  subject,  are 
concerned  with  manifold  fates  of  men,  and  are 
naturally  full  of  various  events  and  varied  scenery. 
They  interest  us  with  new  things  from  book  to 
book.  In  The  Ring  and  the  Book  the  subject  is  not 
great,  the  fates  concerned  are  not  important,  and  the 
same  event  runs  through  twelve  books  and  is  de- 
scribed twelve  times.  However  we  may  admire  the 
intellectual  force  which  actually  makes  the  work 
interesting,  and  the  passion  which  often  thrills  us 
in  it  —  this  is  more  than  the  subject  bears,  and  than 
we  can  always  endure.  Each  book  is  spun  out  far 
beyond  what  is  necessary ;  a  great  deal  is  inserted 
which  would  be  wisely  left  out.  No  one  could  be 
more  concise  than  Browning  when  he  pleased. 
His  power  of  flashing  a  situation  or  a  thought  into 
a  few  words  is  well  known.  But  he  did  not  always 
use  this  power.  And  in  The  Rmg  and  the  Booky  as 
in  some  of  the  poems  that  followed  it,  he  seems 
now  and  then  to  despise  that  power. 

And  now  for  the  poem  itself.  Browning  tells  the 
story  eight  times  by  different  persons,  each  from  a 
different  point  of  view,  and  twice  more  by  the  same 
person  before  and  after  his  condemnation  and,  of 
course,  from  two  points  of  view.  Then  he  practi- 
cally tells  it  twice  more  in  the  prologue  and  the 
epilogue  —  twelve  times  in  all — and  in  spite  of  what 
I  have  said  about  the  too  great  length  of  the  poem, 
this  is  an  intellectual  victory  that  no  one  else  but 


THE  RING  AND    THE  BOOK  399 

Browning  could  have  won  against  its  difficulties. 
Whether  it  was  worth  the  creation  by  himself  of  the 
difficulty  is  another  question.  He  chose  to  do  it, 
and  we  had  better  submit  to  him  and  get  the  good 
of  his  work.  At  least  we  may  avoid  some  of  the 
weariness  he  himself  feared  by  reading  it  in  the  way 
I  have  mentioned,  as  Browning  meant  it  to  be  read. 
Poems  —  being  the  highest  product  of  the  highest 
genius  of  which  man  is  capable  —  ought  to  be  ap- 
proached with  some  reverence.  And  a  part  of  that 
reverence  is  to  read  them  in  accordance  with  the 
intention  and  desire  of  the  writer. 

We  ought  not  to  forget  the  date  of  the  tale  when 
we  read  the  book.  It  is  just  two  hundred  years 
ago.  The  murder  of  Pompilia  took  place  in  1698  ; 
and  the  book  completes  his  studies  of  the  Renaissance 
in  its  decay.  If  Sordello  is  worth  our  careful  reading 
as  a  study  of  the  thirteenth  century  in  North  Italy, 
this  book  is  as  valuable  as  a  record  of  the  society  of 
its  date.  It  is,  in  truth,  a  mine  of  gold  ;  pure  crude 
ore  is  secreted  from  man's  life,  then  moulded  into 
figures  of  living  men  and  women  by  the  insight 
and  passion  of  the  poet.  In  it  is  set  down  Rome  as 
she  was  —  her  customs,  opinions,  classes  of  society; 
her  dress,  houses,  streets,  lanes,  byeways,  and 
squares ;  her  architecture,  fountains,  statues,  courts 
of  law,  convents,  gardens ;  her  fashion  and  its 
drawing-rooms,  the  various  professions  and  their 
habits,  high  life  and  middle  class,  tradesmen  and 
beggars,  priest,  friar,  lay-ecclesiastic,  cardinal,  and 
Pope.  Nowhere  is  this  pictorial  and  individualising 
part  of  Browning's  genius  more  delighted  with  its 
work.  Every  description  is  written  by  a  lover  of 
humanity,  and  with  joy. 


400  BROWNING 

Nor  is  he  less  vivid  in  the  mise-en-schte  in  which 
he  places  this  multitude  of  personages.  In  Half- 
Rome  we  mingle  with  the  crowd  between  Palazzo 
Fiano  and  Ruspoli,  and  pass  into  the  church  of 
Lorenzo  in  Lucina  where  the  murdered  bodies  are 
exposed.  The  mingled  humours  of  the  crowd,  the 
various  persons  and  their  characters  are  combined 
with  and  enhanced  by  the  scenery.  Then  there  is 
the  Market  Place  by  the  Capucin  convent  of  the 
Piazza  Barberini,  with  the  fountains  leaping ;  then 
the  Reunion  at  a  palace,  and  the  fine  fashionable 
folk  among  the  mirrors  and  the  chandeliers,  each 
with  their  view  of  the  question ;  then  the  Court- 
house, with  all  its  paraphernalia,  where  Guido  and 
Caponsacchi  plead ;  then,  the  sketches,  as  new 
matters  turn  up,  of  the  obscure  streets  of  Rome, 
of  the  country  round  Arezzo,  of  Arezzo  itself,  of 
the  post  road  from  Arezzo  to  Rome  and  the  country 
inn  near  Rome,  of  the  garden  house  in  the  suburbs, 
of  the  households  of  the  two  advocates  and  their 
different  ways  of  living ;  of  the  Pope  in  his  closet 
and  of  Guido  in  the  prison  cell ;  and  last,  the  full 
description  of  the  streets  and  the  Piazza  del  Popolo 
on  the  day  of  the  execution  —  all  with  a  hundred 
vivifying,  illuminating,  minute  details  attached  to 
them  by  this  keen-eyed,  observant,  questing  poet 
who  remembered  everything  he  saw,  and  was  able 
to  use  each  detail  where  it  was  most  wanted. 
Memories  are  good,  but  good  usage  of  them  is  the 
fine  power.  The  mise-en-schte  is  then  excellent,  and 
Browning  was  always  careful  to  make  it  right,  fitting, 
and  enlivening.  Nowhere  is  this  better  done  than  in 
the  Introduction  where  he  finds  the  book  on  a  stall 
in  the  Square  of  San  Lorenzo,  and  describes  modern 


THE  RING   AND    THE  BOOK  401 

Florence  in  his  walk  from  the  Square  past  the 
Strozzi,  the  Pillar,  and  the  Bridge  to  Casa  Guidi 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Arno  opposite  the  little 
Church  of  San  Felice.  During  the  walk  he  read 
the  book  through,  yet  saw  everything  he  passed 
by.  The  description  will  show  how  keen  were  his 
eyes,  how  masterly  his  execution. 

That  memorable  day, 
(June  was  the  month,  Lorenzo  named  the  Square) 
I  leaned  a  little  and  overlooked  my  prize 
By  the  low  railing  round  the  fountain-source 
Close  to  the  statue,  where  a  step  descends : 
While  clinked  the  cans  of  copper,  as  stooped  and  rose 
Thick-ankled  girls  who  brimmed  them,  and  made  place 
For  marketmen  glad  to  pitch  basket  down, 
Dip  a  broad  melon-leaf  that  holds  the  wet. 
And  whisk  their  faded  fresh.     And  on  I  read 
Presently,  though  my  path  grew  perilous 
Between  the  outspread  straw-work,  piles  of  plait 
Soon  to  be  flapping,  each  o'er  two  black  eyes 
And  swathe  of  Tuscan  hair,  on  festas  fine  : 
Through  fire-irons,  tribes  of  tongs,  shovels  in  sheaves, 
Skeleton  bedsteads,  wardrobe-drawers  agape. 
Rows  of  tall  slim  brass  lamps  with  dangling  gear,  — 
And  worse,  cast  clothes  a-sweetening  in  the  sun : 
None  of  them  took  my  eye  from  off  my  prize. 
Still  read  I  on,  from  written  title  page 
To  written  index,  on,  through  street  and  street, 
At  the  Strozzi,  at  the  Pillar,  at  the  Bridge ; 
Till,  by  the  time  I  stood  at  home  again 
In  Casa  Guidi  by  Felice  Church, 
Under  the  doorway  where  the  black  begins 
With  the  first  stone-slab  of  the  staircase  cold, 
I  had  mastered  the  contents,  knew  the  whole  truth 
Gathered  together,  bound  up  in  this  book. 
Print  three-fifths,  written  supplement  the  rest. 

This  power,  combined  with  his  power  of  por- 
traiture, makes  this  long  poem  alive.  No  other 
man  of  his  century  could  paint  like  him  the  to  and 

2D 


402  BROWNING 

fro  of  a  city,  the  hurly-burly  of  humanity,  the  crowd, 
the  movement,  the  changing  passions,  the  loud  or 
quiet  clash  of  thoughts,  the  gestures,  the  dress,  the 
interweaving  of  expression  on  the  face,  the  whole 
play  of  humanity  in  war  or  peace.  As  we  read,  we 
move  with  men  and  women  ;  we  are  pressed  every- 
where by  mankind.  We  listen  to  the  sound  of 
humanity,  sinking  sometimes  to  the  murmur  we 
hear  at  night  from  some  high  window  in  London ; 
swelling  sometimes,  as  in  Sordello,  into  a  roar  of 
violence,  wrath,  revenge,  and  war.  And  it  was  all 
contained  in  that  little  body,  brain,  and  heart ;  and 
given  to  us,  who  can  feel  it,  but  not  give  it.  This 
is  the  power  which  above  all  endears  him  to  us  as 
a  poet.  We  feel  in  each  poem  not  only  the  waves 
of  the  special  event  of  which  he  writes,  but  also  the 
large  vibration  of  the  ocean  of  humanity. 

He  was  not  unaware  of  this  power  of  his.  We 
are  told  in  Sordello  that  he  dedicated  himself  to 
the  picturing  of  humanity;  and  he  came  to  think 
that  a  Power  beyond  ours  had  accepted  this  dedi- 
cation, and  directed  his  work.  He  declares  in  the 
introduction  that  he  felt  a  Hand  ("  always  above 
my  shoulder  —  mark  the  predestination"),  that 
pushed  him  to  the  stall  where  he  found  the  fated 
book  in  whose  womb  lay  his  child  —  The  Ring  a7id 
the  Book.  And  he  believed  that  he  had  certain 
God-given  qualities  which  fitted  him  for  this  work. 
These  he  sets  forth  in  this  introduction,  and  the 
self-criticism  is  of  the  greatest  interest. 

The  first  passage  is,  when  he  describes  how, 
having  finished  the  book  and  got  into  him  all  the 
gold  of  its  fact,  he  added  from  himself  that  to  the 
gold  which  made  it  workable  —  added  to  it  his  five 


THE  RING   AND   THE  BOOK  403 

soul,  informed,  transpierced  it  through  and  through 
with  imagination  ;  and  then,  standing  on  his  balcony 
over  the  street,  saw  the  whole  story  from  the  begin- 
ning shape  itself  out  on  the  night,  alive  and  clear, 
not  in  dead  memory  but  in  living  movement ;  saw 
right  away  out  on  the  Roman  road  to  Arezzo,  and 
all  that  there  befell ;  then  passed  to  Rome  again 
with  the  actors  in  the  tragedy,  a  presence  with  them 
who  heard  them  speak  and  think  and  act.  The  "  life 
in  him  aboHshed  the  death  of  things  —  deep  call- 
ing unto  deep."  For  "  a  spirit  laughed  and  leaped 
through  his  every  limb,  and  lit  his  eye,  and  lifted 
him  by  the  hair,  and  let  him  have  his  will  "  with 
Pompilia,  Guido,  Caponsacchi,  the  lawyers,  the 
Pope,  and  the  whole  of  Rome.  And  they  rose  from 
the  dead  ;  the  old  woe  stepped  on  the  stage  again  at 
the  magician's  command  ;  and  the  rough  gold  of  fact 
was  rounded  to  a  ring  by  art.  But  the  ring  should 
have  a  posy,  and  he  makes  that  in  a  passionate  cry 
to  his  dead  wife  —  a  lovely  spell  where  high  think- 
ing and  full  feeling  meet  and  mingle  like  two  deep 
rivers.  Whoso  reads  it  feels  how  her  spirit,  living 
still  for  him,  brooded  over  and  blest  his  masterpiece : 

O  lyric  Love,  half  angel  and  half  bird 

And  all  a  wonder  and  a  wild  desire,  — 

Boldest  of  hearts  that  ever  braved  the  sun, 

Took  sanctuary  within  the  holier  blue, 

And  sang  a  kindred  soul  out  to  his  face,  — 

Yet  human  at  the  red-ripe  of  the  heart  — 

When  the  first  summons  from  the  darkling  earth 

Reached  thee  amid  thy  chambers,  blanched  their  blue, 

And  bared  them  of  the  glory — to  drop  down, 

To  toil  for  man,  to  suffer  or  to  die,  — 

This  is  the  same  voice  :  can  thy  soul  know  change? 

Hail  then,  and  hearken  from  the  realms  of  help! 

Never  may  I  commence  my  song,  my  due 

To  God  who  best  taught  song  by  gift  of  thee, 


404  BROWNING 

Except  with  bent  head  and  beseeching  hand  — 

That  still,  despite  the  distance  and  the  dark, 

What  was,  again  may  be  ;  some  interchange 

Of  grace,  some  splendour  once  thy  very  thought, 

Some  benediction  anciently  thy  smile  : 

—  Never  conclude,  but  raising  hand  and  head 

Thither  where  eyes,  that  cannot  reach,  yet  yearn 

For  all  hope,  all  sustainment,  all  reward. 

Their  utmost  up  and  on,  —  so  blessing  back 

In  those  thy  realms  of  help,  that  heaven  thy  home. 

Some  w^hiteness  which,  I  judge,  thy  face  makes  proud, 

Some  wanness  where,  I  think,  thy  foot  may  fall! 

The  poem  begins  with  the  view  that  one  half  of 
Rome  took  of  the  events.  At  the  very  commence- 
ment we  touch  one  of  the  secondary  interests  of 
the  book,  the  incidental  characters.  Guido,  Capon- 
sacchi,  Pompilia,  the  Pope,  and,  in  a  lesser  degree, 
Violante  and  Pietro,  are  the  chief  characters,  and  the 
main  interest  contracts  around  them.  But,  through 
all  they  say  and  do,  as  a  motley  crowd  through  a 
street,  a  great  number  of  minor  characters  move  to 
and  fro ;  and  Browning,  whose  eye  sees  every  face, 
and  through  the  face  into  the  soul,  draws  them  one 
by  one,  some  more  fully  than  others  in  perhaps  a 
hundred  Hues,  some  only  in  ten.  Most  of  them  are 
types  of  a  class,  a  profession  or  a  business,  yet 
there  is  always  a  touch  or  two  which  isolates  each 
of  them  so  that  they  do  not  only  represent  a  class 
but  a  personal  character.  He  hated,  like  Morris,  the 
withering  of  the  individual,  nor  did  he  beheve,  nor 
any  man  who  knows  and  feels  mankind,  that  by  that 
the  world  grew  more  and  more.  The  poem  is  full  of 
such  individualities.  It  were  well,  as  one  example, 
to  read  the  whole  account  of  the  people  who  come 
to  see  the  murdered  bodies  laid  out  in  the  Church 
of  Lorenzo.     The  old,  curious,  doddering  gossip  of 


THE  RING  AND   THE  BOOK  405 

the  Roman  street  is  not  less  alive  than  the  Cardinal, 
and  the  clever  pushing  Curato ;  and  around  them 
are  heard  the  buzz  of  talk,  the  movement  of  the 
crowd.  The  church,  the  square  are  humming  with 
humanity. 

He  does  the  same  clever  work  at  the  deathbed  of 
Pompiha.  She  lies  in  the  House  of  the  dying,  and 
certain  folk  are  allowed  to  see  her.  Each  one  is 
made  alive  by  this  creative  pencil ;  and  all  are  dif- 
ferent, one  from  the  other  —  the  Augustinian  monk, 
old  mother  Baldi  chattering  like  a  jay  who  thought 
that  to  touch  Pompilia's  bedclothes  would  cure  her 
palsy,  Cavalier  Carlo  who  fees  the  porter  to  paint 
her  face  just  because  she  was  murdered  and  famous, 
the  folk  who  argue  on  theology  over  her  wounded 
body.  Elsewhere  we  possess  the  life-history  of 
Pietro  and  Violante,  PompiUa's  reputed  parents ; 
several  drawings  of  the  retired  tradesmen  class,  with 
their  gossips  and  friends,  in  the  street  of  a  poor 
quarter  in  Rome ;  then,  the  Governor  and  Archbishop 
of  Arezzo,  the  friar  who  is  kindly  but  fears  the 
world  and  all  the  busy-bodies  of  this  provincial  town. 
Arezzo,  its  characters  and  indwellers,  stand  in  clear 
light.  The  most  vivid  of  these  sketches  is  Dominus 
Hyacinthus,  the  lawyer  who  defends  Guido.  I  do 
not  know  anything  better  done,  and  more  amusingly, 
than  this  man  and  his  household  —  a  paternal 
creature,  full  of  his  boys  and  their  studies,  making 
us,  in  his  garrulous  pleasure,  at  home  with  them  and 
his  fat  wife.  Browning  was  so  fond  of  this  sketch 
that  he  drew  him  and  his  boys  over  again  in  the 
epilogue. 

These  represent  the  episodical  characters  in  this 
drama  of  life ;  and  Browning  has  scattered  them,  as 


4o6  BROWNING 

it  were,  behind  the  chief  characters,  whom  some- 
times they  illustrate  and  sometimes  they  contrast. 
Of  these  the  whitest,  simplest,  loveliest  is  Pompilia, 
of  whom  I  have  already  written.  The  other  chief 
characters  are  Count  Guido  and  Giuseppe  Capon- 
sacchi ;  and  to  the  full  development  of  these  two 
characters  Browning  gives  all  his  powers.  They 
are  contrasted  types  of  the  spirit  of  good  and  the 
spirit  of  evil  conquering  in  man.  Up  to  a  certain 
point  in  life  their  conduct  is  much  alike.  Both 
belong  to  the  Church  —  one  as  a  priest,  one  as  a 
layman  affiliated  to  the  Church.  The  lust  of  money 
and  self,  when  the  character  of  Pompilia  forces  act, 
turns  Guido  into  a  beast  of  greed  and  hate.  The 
same  character,  when  it  forces  act,  lifts  Caponsacchi 
into  almost  a  saint.  This  was  a  piece  of  contrasted 
psychology  in  which  the  genius  of  Browning  revelled, 
and  he  followed  all  the  windings  of  it  in  both 
these  hearts  with  the  zest  of  an  explorer.  They 
were  labyrinthine,  but  the  more  labyrinthine  the 
better  he  was  pleased.  Guido's  first  speech  is 
made  before  the  court  in  his  defence.  We  see  dis- 
closed the  outer  skin  of  the  man's  soul,  all  that  he 
would  have  the  world  know  of  him  —  cynical,  mock- 
ing, not  cruel,  not  affectionate,  a  man  of  the  world 
whom  life  had  disappointed,  and  who  wishing  to  es- 
tablish himself  in  a  retired  life  by  marriage  had  been 
deceived  and  betrayed,  he  pleads,  by  his  wife  and 
her  parents  —  an  injured  soul  who,  stung  at  last  into 
fury  at  having  a  son  foisted  on  him,  vindicates  his 
honour.  And  in  this  vindication  his  hypocrisy  slips 
at  intervals  from  him,  because  his  hatred  of  his  wife 
is  too  much  for  his  hypocrisy. 

This  is  the  only  touch  of  the  wolf  in  the  man  — 


THE  RING  AND   THE  BOOK  407 

his  cruel   teeth    shown    momentarily  through   the 
smooth  surface   of   his  defence.     A  weaker  poet 
would  have  left  him  there,  not  having  capacity  for 
more.     But  Browning,  so  rich  in  thought  he  was, 
had  only  begun  to  draw  him.     Guido  is  not  only 
painted  by  three  others  — by  Caponsacchi,  by  Pom- 
pilia,  by  the  Pope  —  but  he  finally  exposes  his  real 
self  with  his  own  hand.     He  is  condemned  to  death. 
Two  of  his  friends  visit  him  the  night  before  his 
execution,  in  his  cell.    Then,  exalted  into  eloquence 
by  the  fierce  passions  of  fear  of  death  and  hatred  of 
Pompilia,  he  lays  bare  as  the  night  his  very  soul, 
mean,  cruel,  cowardly,  hungry  for  revenge,  crying 
for  life,  black  with  hate  —  a  revelation  such  as  in 
literature  can  best  be  paralleled  by  the  soliloquies 
of  lago.     Baseness  is  supreme  in  his  speech,  hate 
was   never  better  given;    the  words   are  like  the 
gnashing  of  teeth ;  prayers  for  life  at  any  cost  were 
never   meaner,    and   the   outburst   of    terror   and 
despair  at  the  end  is  their  ultimate  expression. 

Over  against  him  is  set  Caponsacchi,  of  noble 
birth,  of  refined  manner,  one  of  those  polished  and 
cultivated  priests  of  whom  Rome  makes  such  excel- 
lent use,  and  of  whom  Browning  had  drawn  already 
a  different  type  in  Bishop  Blougram.  He  hesitated, 
being  young  and  gay,  to  enter  the  Church.  But  the 
Archbishop  of  that  easy  time,  two  hundred  years 
ago,  told  him  the  Church  was  strong  enough  to 
bear  a  few  Ught  priests,  and  that  he  would  be  set 
free  from  many  ecclesiastical  duties  if,  by  assiduity 
in  society  and  with  women,  he  strengthened  the 
social  weight  of  the  Church.  In  that  way,  making 
his  madrigals  and  confessing  fine  ladies,  he  lived  for 
four  years.     This  is  an  admirable  sketch  of  a  type 


4o8  BROWNING 

of  Church  society  of  that  date,  indeed,  of  any  date 
in  any  Church  ;  it  is  by  no  means  confined  to  Rome. 
On  this  worldly,  careless,  indifferent,  pleasure- 
seeking  soul  Pompilia,  in  her  trouble  and  the  pity 
of  it,  rises  like  a  pure  star  seen  through  mist  that 
opens  at  intervals  to  show  her  excelling  brightness  ; 
and  in  a  moment,  at  the  first  glimpse  of  her  in  the 
theatre,  the  false  man  drops  away ;  his  soul  breaks 
up,  stands  clear,  and  claims  its  divine  birth.  He  is 
born  again,  and  then  transfigured.  The  hfe  of  con- 
vention, of  indifference,  dies  before  Pompilia's  eyes  ; 
and  on  the  instant  he  is  true  to  himself,  to  her,  and 
to  God.  The  fleeting  passions  which  had  absorbed 
him,  and  were  of  the  senses,  are  burned  up,  and  the 
spiritual  love  for  her  purity,  and  for  purity  itself 
—  that  eternal,  infinite  desire  —  is  now  master  of 
his  life.  Not  as  Miranda  and  Ferdinand  changed 
eyes  in  youthful  love,  but  as  Dante  and  Beatrice 
look  on  one  another  in  Paradise,  did  Pompilia  and 
Caponsacchi  change  eyes,  and  know  at  once  that 
both  were  true,  and  see  without  speech  the  central 
worth  of  their  souls.  They  trusted  one  another  and 
they  loved  for  ever.  So,  when  she  cried  to  him  in 
her  distress,  he  did  her  bidding  and  bore  her  away 
to  Rome.  He  tells  the  story  of  their  flight,  and  tells 
it  with  extraordinary  beauty  and  vehemence  in  her 
defence.  So  noble  is  the  tale  that  he  convinces  the 
judges  who  at  first  had  disbeHeved  him;  and  the 
Pope  confesses  that  his  imprudence  was  a  higher 
good  than  priestly  prudence  would  have  been. 
When  he  makes  his  defence  he  has  heard  that 
Pompilia  has  been  murdered.  Then  we  understand 
that  in  his  conversion  to  goodness  he  has  not  lost 
but  gained  passion.    Scorn  of  the  judges,  who  could 


THE  RING   AND    THE  BOOK  409 

not  see  that  neither  he  was  guilty  nor  PompiHa ;  fiery 
indignation  with  the  murderer  ;  infinite  grief  for  the 
lamb  slain  by  the  wolf,  and  irrevocable  love  for  the 
soul  of  Pompilia,  whom  he  will  dwell  with  eternally 
when  they  meet  in  Heaven,  a  love  which  Pompilia, 
dying,  declares  she  has  for  him,  and  in  which, 
growing  and  abiding,  she  will  wait  for  him  —  burn 
on  his  lips.  He  is  fully  and  nobly  a  man ;  yet,  at 
the  end  —  and  he  is  no  less  a  man  for  it  —  the  wild 
sorrow  at  his  heart  breaks  him  down  into  a  cry  : 
O  great,  just,  good  God  !     Miserable  me  ! 

Pompilia  ends  her  words  more  quietly,  in  the 
faith  that  comes  with  death.  Caponsacchi  has  to 
live  on,  to  bear  the  burden  of  the  world.  But 
Pompilia  has  borne  all  she  had  to  bear.  All  pain 
and  horror  are  behind  her,  as  she  lies  in  the  stillness, 
dying.  And  in  the  fading  of  this  life,  she  knows  she 
loves  Caponsacchi  in  the  spiritual  world  and  will 
love  him  for  ever.  Each  speaks  according  to  the 
circumstance,  but  she  most  nobly : 

He  is  ordained  to  call  and  I  to  come! 

Do  not  the  dead  wear  flowers  when  dressed  for  God.'* 

Say,  —  I  am  all  in  flowers  from  head  to  foot! 

Say,  —  not  one  flower  of  all  he  said  and  did, 

Might  seem  to  flit  unnoticed,  fade  unknown, 

But  dropped  a  seed,  has  grown  a  balsam-tree 

Whereof  the  blossoming  perfumes  the  place 

At  this  supreme  of  moments !     He  is  a  priest ; 

He  cannot  marry  therefore,  which  is  right : 

I  think  he  would  not  marry  if  he  could. 

Marriage  on  earth  seems  such  a  counterfeit. 

Mere  imitation  of  the  inimitable  : 

In  heaven  we  have  the  real  and  true  and  sure. 

'Tis  there  they  neither  marry  nor  are  given 

In  marriage  but  are  as  the  angels  :  right, 

Oh  how  right  that  is,  how  like  Jesus  Christ 


4IO  BROWNING 

To  say  that!     Marriage-making  for  the  earth, 
With  gold  so  much,  —  birth,  power,  repute  so  much, 
Or  beauty,  youth  so  much,  in  lack  of  these! 
Be  as  the  angels  rather,  who,  apart, 
Know  themselves  into  one,  are  found  at  length 
Married,  but  marry  never,  no,  nor  give 
In  marriage ;  they  are  man  and  wife  at  once 
When  the  true  time  is ;  here  we  have  to  wait 
Not  so  long  neither  !     Could  we  by  a  wish 
Have  what  we  will  and  get  the  future  now. 
Would  we  wish  aught  done  undone  in  the  past? 
So,  let  him  wait  God's  instant  men  call  years ; 
Meantime  hold  hard  by  truth  and  his  great  soul, 
Do  out  the  duty  !     Through  such  souls  alone 
God  stooping  shows  sufficient  of  His  light 
For  us  i'  the  dark  to  rise  by.     And  I  rise. 

Last  of  these  main  characters,  the  Pope  appears. 
Guido,  condemned  to  death  by  the  law,  appeals  from 
the  law  to  the  head  of  the  Church,  because,  being 
half  an  ecclesiastic,  his  death  can  only  finally  be 
decreed  by  the  ecclesiastical  arm.  An  old,  old  man, 
with  eyes  clear  of  the  quarrels,  conventions,  class 
prejudices  of  the  world,  the  Pope  has  gone  over  all 
the  case  during  the  day,  and  now  night  has  fallen. 
Far  from  the  noise  of  Rome,  removed  from  the  pas- 
sions of  the  chief  characters,  he  is  sitting  in  the  still- 
ness of  his  closet,  set  on  his  decision.  We  see  the 
whole  case  now,  through  his  mind,  in  absolute  quiet. 
He  has  been  on  his  terrace  to  look  at  the  stars,  and 
their  solemn  peace  is  with  him.  He  feels  that  he  is 
now  alone  with  God  and  his  old  age.  And  being 
alone,  he  is  not  concise,  but  garrulous  and  discursive. 
Browning  makes  him  so  on  purpose.  But  discursive 
as  his  mind  is,  his  judgment  is  clear,  his  sentence 
determined.  Only,  before  he  speaks,  he  will  weigh 
all  the  characters,  and  face  any  doubts  that  may 


THE  RING  AND    THE  BOOK  411 

shoot  into  his  conscience.  He  passes  Guido  and 
the  rest  before  his  spiritual  tribunal,  judging  not 
from  the  legal  point  of  view,  but  from  that  which 
his  Master  would  take  at  the  Judgment  Day.  How 
have  they  lived;  what  have  they  made  of  life.? 
When  circumstances  invaded  them  with  temptation, 
how  did  they  meet  temptation  ?  Did  they  declare 
by  what  they  did  that  they  were  on  God's  side  or 
the  devil's }  And  on  these  lines  he  delivers  his 
sentence  on  Pompiha,  Caponsacchi,  Guido,  Pietro, 
Violante,  and  the  rest.  He  feels  he  speaks  as  the 
Vicegerent  of  God. 

This  solemn,  silent,  lonely,  unworldly  judgment 
of  the  whole  case,  done  in  God's  presence,  is,  after 
the  noisy,  crowded,  worldly  judgment  of  it  by  Rome, 
after  the  rude  humours  of  the  law,  and  the  terrible 
clashing  of  human  passions,  most  impressive  ;  and 
it  rises  into  the  majesty  of  old  age  in  the  summing 
up  of  the  characters  of  Pompilia,  Caponsacchi,  and 
Guido.  I  wish  Browning  had  left  it  there.  But 
he  makes  a  sudden  doubt  invade  the  Pope  with  a 
chill.  Has  he  judged  rightly  in  thinking  that  divine 
truth  is  with  him.?  Is  there  any  divine  truth  on 
which  he  may  infallibly  repose  } 

And  then  for  many  pages  we  are  borne  away 
into  a  theological  discussion,  which  I  take  leave  to 
say  is  wearisome;  and  which,  after  all,  lands  the 
Pope  exactly  at  the  point  from  which  he  set  out  — 
a  conclusion  at  which,  as  we  could  have  told  him 
beforehand,  he  would  be  certain  to  arrive.  We 
might  have  been  spared  this.  It  is  an  instance  of 
Browning's  pleasure  in  intellectual  discourse  which 
had,  as  I  have  said,  such  sad  results  on  his  imagina- 
tive work.     However,  at  the  end,  the  Pope  resumes 


412  BROWNING 

his  interest  in  human  life.  He  determines ;  and 
quickly  —  "  Let  the  murderer  die  to-morrow." 

Then  comes  the  dreadful  passion  of  Guido  in  the 
condemned  cell,  of  which  I  have  spoken.  And 
then,  one  would  think  the  poem  would  have  closed. 
But  no,  the  epilogue  succeeds,  in  which,  after  all 
the  tragedy,  humour  reigns  supreme.  It  brings  us 
into  touch  with  all  that  happened  in  this  case  after 
the  execution  of  Guido ;  the  letters  written  by  the 
spectators,  the  lawyer's  view  of  the  deed,  the  gossip 
of  Rome  upon  the  interesting  occasion.  No  piece 
of  humour  in  Browning's  poetry,  and  no  portrait- 
sketching,  is  better  than  the  letter  written  by  a  Vene- 
tian gentleman  in  Rome  giving  an  account  of  the 
execution.  It  is  high  comedy  when  we  are  told 
that  the  Austrian  Ambassador,  who  had  pleaded 
for  Guido's  life,  was  so  vexed  by  the  sharp  "  no  " 
of  the  Pope  (even  when  he  had  told  the  Pope  that 
he  had  probably  dined  at  the  same  table  with 
Guido),  that  he  very  nearly  refused  to  come  to  the 
execution,  and  would  scarcely  vouchsafe  it  more 
than  a  glance  when  he  did  come — as  if  this  con- 
duct of  his  were  a  slight  which  the  Pope  would 
feel  acutely.  Nor  does  Browning's  invention  stop 
with  this  inimitable  letter.  He  adds  two  other 
letters  which  he  found  among  the  papers ;  and 
these  give  to  the  characters  of  the  two  lawyers, 
new  turns,  new  images  of  their  steady  professional 
ambition  not  to  find  truth,  but  to  gain  the  world. 

One  would  think,  after  this,  that  invention  would 
be  weary.  Not  at  all !  The  Augustinian  monk 
who  attended  Pompilia  has  not  had  attention 
enough  ;  and  this  is  the  place.  Browning  thinks, 
to  show  what  he  thought  of  the  case,  and  how  he 


THE  RING   AND   THE  BOOK  413 

used  it  in  his  profession.  So,  we  are  given  a 
great  part  of  the  sermon  he  preached  on  the  occa- 
sion, and  the  various  judgments  of  Rome  upon  it. 
It  is  wonderfulj  after  invention  has  been  actively 
at  work  for  eleven  long  books,  pouring  forth  its 
waters  from  an  unfailing  fountain,  to  find  it,  at  the 
end,  as  gay,  as  fresh,  as  keen,  as  youthful  as  ever. 
This,  I  repeat,  is  the  excellence  of  Browning's  genius 
—  fulness  of  creative  power,  with  imagination  in  it 
like  a  fire.  It  does  not  follow  that  all  it  produces  is 
poetry;  and  what  it  has  produced  in  The  Ring  and 
the  Book  is  sometimes,  save  for  the  metre,  nothing 
better  than  prose.  But  this  is  redeemed  by  the 
noble  poetry  of  a  great  part  of  it.  The  book  is,  as 
I  have  said,  a  mixed  book  —  the  central  arena  of 
that  struggle  in  Browning  between  prose  and 
poetry  with  a  discussion  of  which  this  chapter 
began,  and  with  the  mention  of  which  I  finish  it. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

LATER  POEMS 

A  JUST  appreciation  of  the  work  which  Brown- 
ing published  after  The  Ring  and  the  Book  is 
a  difficult  task.  The  poems  are  of  various  kinds,  on 
widely  separated  subjects ;  and  with  the  exception 
of  those  which  treat  of  Balaustion,  they  have  no 
connection  with  one  another.  Many  of  them  must 
belong  to  the  earlier  periods  of  his  hfe,  and  been 
introduced  into  the  volumes  out  of  the  crowd  of 
unpublished  poems  every  poet  seems  to  possess. 
These,  when  we  come  across  them  among  their 
middle-aged  companions,  make  a  strange  impres- 
sion, as  if  we  found  a  white-thorn  flowering  in  an 
autumnal  woodland ;  and  in  previous  chapters  of 
this  book  I  have  often  fetched  them  out  of  their 
places,  and  considered  them  where  they  ought  to  be 
—  in  the  happier  air  and  light  in  which  they  were 
born.  I  will  not  discuss  them  again,  but  in  forming 
any  judgment  of  the  later  poems  they  must  be 
discarded. 

The  struggle  to  which  I  have  drawn  attention 
between  the  imaginative  and  intellectual  elements  in 
Browning,  and  which  was  equally  balanced  in  TJie 
Rhig  and  the  Booky  continued  after  its  publication, 
but  with  a  steady  lessening  of  the  imaginative  and 

414 


LATER  POEMS  41 S 

a  steady  increase  of  the  intellectual  elements.  One 
poem,  however,  written  before  the  publication  of 
The  Ring  and  the  Book,  does  not  belong  to  this 
struggle.  This  is  Herve  Kiel,  a  ballad  of  fire  and 
joy  and  triumph.  It  is  curiously  French  in  sentiment 
and  expression,  and  the  eager  sea-delight  in  it  is 
plainly  French,  not  English  in  feeling.  Nor  is  it 
only  French ;  it  is  Breton  in  audacity,  in  self- 
forgetfulness,  in  carelessness  of  reward,  and  in 
loyalty  to  country,  to  love,  and  to  home.  If  Browning 
had  been  all  English,  this  transference  of  himself 
into  the  soul  of  another  nationality  would  have  been 
wonderful,  nay,  impossible.  As  it  is,  it  is  wonderful 
enough  ;  and  this  self -transference  —  one  of  his 
finest  poetic  powers  —  is  nowhere  better  accom- 
plished than  in  this  poem,  full  of  the  salt  wind  and 
the  leap  and  joy  of  the  sea-waves;  but  even  more 
full,  as  was  natural  to  Browning,  of  the  Breton  soul 
of  Herve  Riel. 

In  Balatistion' s  Adventure  (1871)  which  next  ap- 
peared, the  imaginative  elements,  as  we  have  seen, 
are  still  alive  and  happy ;  and  though  they  only 
emerge  at  intervals  in  its  continuation,  Aristophmies' 
Apology  (18 ys)f  yet  they  do  emerge.  Meanwhile, 
between  Balanstion' s  Adventure  and  the  end  of 
1875,  he  produced  four  poems — Prince  Hohenstiel- 
ScJnvangany  Savionr  of  Society  ;  Fifine  at  the  Fair  ; 
Red  Cotto7i  Night-Cap  Coimtry,  or  Turf  and  Towers  ; 
and  The  bin  Album.  They  are  all  long,  and  were 
published  in  four  separate  volumes.  In  them  the 
intellectual  elements  have  all  but  completely  con- 
quered the  imaginative.  They  are,  however,  favour- 
ite ''  exercise-places  "  for  some  of  his  admirers,  who 
think  that  they  derive  poetic  pleasures  from  their 


4i6  BROWNrnG 

study.  The  pleasure  these  poems  give,  when  they 
give  it,  is  not  altogether  a  poetic  pleasure.  It  is 
chiefly  the  pleasure  of  the  understanding  called 
to  solve  with  excitement  a  huddle  of  metaphysical 
problems.  They  have  the  name  but  not  the  nature 
of  poetry. 

They  are  the  work  of  my  Lord  Intelligence  — 
attended  by  wit  and  fancy — who  sits  at  the  desk  of 
poetry,  and  with  her  pen  in  his  hand.  He  uses  the 
furniture  of  poetry,  but  the  goddess  herself  has  left 
the  room.  Yet  something  of  her  influence  still  fills 
the  air  of  the  chamber.  In  the  midst  of  the  brilliant 
display  that  fancy,  wit,  and  intellect  are  making,  a 
soft  steady  light  of  pure  song  burns  briefly  at  in- 
tervals, and  then  is  quenched;  like  the  Hght  of 
stars  seen  for  a  moment  of  quiet  effulgence  among 
the  crackhng  and  dazzling  of  fireworks. 

The  poems  are,  it  is  true,  original.  We  cannot 
class  them  with  any  previous  poetry.  They  cannot 
be  called  didactic  or  satirical.  The  didactic  and 
satirical  poems  of  England  are,  for  the  most  part, 
artificial,  concise,  clear.  These  poems  are  not 
artificial,  clear,  or  concise.  Nor  do  they  represent 
the  men  and  women  of  a  cultured,  intellectual,  and 
conventional  society,  such  as  the  poetry  of  Dryden 
and  Pope  addressed.  The  natural  man  is  in  them 
— the  crude,  dull,  badly-baked  man — what  the  later 
nineteenth  century  called  the  real  man.  We  see  his 
ugly,  sordid,  contemptible,  fettered  soul,  and  long 
for  Salinguerra,  or  Lippo  Lippi,  or  even  Caliban. 
The  representations  are  then  human  enough,  with 
this  kind  of  humanity,  but  they  might  have  been 
left  to  prose.  Poetry  has  no  business  to  build  its 
houses  on  the  waste  and  leprous  lands  of  human 


LATER  POEMS  417 

nature ;  and  less  business  to  call  its  work  art. 
Realism  of  this  kind  is  not  art,  it  is  science. 

Yet  the  poems  are  not  scientific,  for  they  have  no 
clarity  of  argument.  Their  wanderings  of  thought 
are  as  intertangled  as  the  sheep-walks  on  league 
after  league  of  high  grasslands.  When  one  has  a 
fancy  to  follow  them,  the  pursuit  is  entertaining ; 
but  unless  one  has  the  fancy,  there  are  livelier 
employments.  Their  chief  interest  is  the  impres- 
sion they  give  us  of  a  certain  side  of  Browning's 
character.  They  are  his  darling  debauch  of  clever- 
ness, of  surface-psychology.  The  analysis  follows 
no  conventional  lines,  does  not  take  or  oppose  any 
well-known  philosophical  side.  It  is  not  much  more 
than  his  own  serious  or  fantastic  thinking  indulging 
itself  with  reckless  abandon  —  amusing  itself  with 
itself.  And  this  gives  them  a  humanity  —  a  Brown- 
ing humanity  —  outside  of  their  subjects. 

The  subjects  too,  though  not  deHghtful,  are 
founded  on  facts  of  human  life.  Bishop  Blougram 
was  conceived  from  Cardinal  Wiseman's  career, 
Mr,  Sludge  from  Mr.  Home's.  Prince  Hohcnstiel- 
ScJnvatigaii  explains  and  defends  the  expediency  by 
which  Napoleon  III.  directed  his  political  action. 
The  Inn  Alburn^  Red  Cotton  Night-Cap  Coimtry,  are 
taken  from  actual  stories  that  occurred  while  Brown- 
ing was  alive,  and  Fijine  at  the  Fair  analyses  a  com- 
mon crisis  in  the  maturer  lives  of  men  and  women. 
The  poems  thus  keep  close  to  special  cases,  yet — • 
and  in  this  the  poet  appears — they  have  an  extension 
which  carries  them  beyond  the  particular  subjects 
into  the  needs  and  doings  of  a  wider  humanity. 
Their  little  rivers  run  into  the  great  sea.  They  have 
then  their  human  interest  for  a  reader  who  does  not 


41 8  BROWNING 

wish  for  beauty,  passion,  imagination,  or  the  desires 
of  the  spirit  in  his  poetry ;  but  who  hankers  at  his 
soUtary  desk  after  reaHstic  psychology,  fanciful  eth- 
ics, curiosities  of  personal  philosophy,  cold  intellec- 
tual play  with  argument,  and  honest  human  ugliness. 

Moreover,  the  method  Browning  attempts  to  use 
in  them  for  the  discovery  of  truth  is  not  the  method 
of  poetry,  nor  of  any  of  the  arts.  It  is  almost  a 
commonplace  to  say  that  the  world  of  mankind  and 
each  individual  in  it  only  arrives  at  the  truth  on 
any  matter,  large  or  small,  by  going  through  and 
exhausting  the  false  forms  of  that  truth  —  and  a 
very  curious  arrangement  it  seems  to  be.  It  is 
this  method  Browning  pursues  in  these  poems. 
He  represents  one  after  another  various  false  or 
half-true  views  of  the  matter  in  hand,  and  hopes 
in  that  fashion  to  clear  the  way  to  the  truth.  But 
he  fails  to  convince  partly  because  it  is  impossible 
to  give  all  or  enough  of  the  false  or  half-true  views 
of  any  one  truth,  but  chiefly  because  his  method  is 
one  fitted  for  philosophy  or  science,  but  not  for 
poetry.  Poetry  claims  to  see  and  feel  the  truth  at 
once.  When  the  poet  does  not  assert  that  claim, 
and  act  on  it,  he  is  becoming  faithless  to  his  art. 

Browning's  method  in  these  poems  is  the  method 
of  a  scientific  philosopher,  not  of  an  artist.  He 
gets  his  man  into  a  debatable  situation ;  the  man 
debates  it  from  various  points  of  view  ;  persons  are 
introduced  who  take  other  aspects  of  the  question, 
or  personified  abstractions  such  as  Sagacity ^  Reason, 
Fancy  give  their  opinions.  Not  satisfied  with  this. 
Browning  discusses  it  again  from  his  own  point  of 
view.  He  is  then  Hke  the  chess-player  who  himself 
plays  both  red  and  white ;  who  tries  to  keep  both 


LATER  POEMS  419 

distinct  in  his  mind,  but  cannot  help  now  and  again 
taking  one  side  more  than  the  other ;  and  who  is 
frequently  a  third  person  aware  of  himself  as  play- 
ing red,  and  also  of  himself  as  playing  white ;  and 
again  of  himself  as  outside  both  the  players  and 
criticising  their  several  games.  This  is  no  exag- 
gerated account  of  what  is  done  in  these  poems. 
Three  people,  even  when  the  poems  are  monologues, 
are  arguing  in  them,  and  Browning  plays  all  their 
hands,  even  in  The  Inn  Albnm^  which  is  not  a  mono- 
logue. In  Red  Cotton  Night-Cap  Country,  when  he 
has  told  the  story  of  the  man  and  woman  in  all  its 
sordid  and  insane  detail,  with  comments  of  his  own, 
he  brings  the  victim  of  mean  pleasure  and  mean 
superstition  to  the  top  of  the  tower  whence  he 
throws  himself  down,  and,  inserting  his  inteUigence 
into  the  soul  of  the  man,  explains  his  own  view  of 
the  situation.  In  Prince  Hohenstiel-Schwangau^  we 
have  sometimes  what  Browning  really  thinks,  as  in 
the  beginning  of  the  poem,  about  the  matter  in 
hand,  and  then  what  he  thinks  the  Prince  would 
think,  and  then,  to  complicate  the  affair  still  more, 
the  Prince  divides  himself,  and  makes  a  personage 
called  Sagacity  dirgwQVfith.  him  on  the  whole  situation. 
As  to  Fifine  at  the  Fair —  a  poem  it  would  not  be 
fair  to  class  altogether  with  these  —  its  involutions 
resemble  a  number  of  live  eels  in  a  tub  of  water. 
Don  Juan  changes  his  personality  and  his  views 
like  a  player  on  the  stage  who  takes  several  parts; 
Elvire  is  a  gliding  phantom  with  gliding  opinions  ; 
Fifine  is  real,  but  she  remains  outside  of  this 
shifting  scenery  of  the  mind  ;  and  Browning,  who 
continually  intrudes,  is  sometimes  Don  Juan  and 
sometimes  himself  and  sometimes  both  together,  and 


420  BROWNING 

sometimes  another  thinker  who  strives  to  bring,  as 
in  the  visions  in  the  poem,  some  definition  into  this 
changing  cloudland  of  the  brain.  And  after  all,  not 
one  of  the  questions  posed  in  any  of  the  poems  is 
settled  in  the  end.  I  do  not  say  that  the  leaving 
of  the  questions  unsettled  is  not  like  life.  It  is  very 
like  life,  but  not  like  the  work  of  poetry,  whose 
high  office  it  is  to  decide  questions  which  cannot 
be  solved  by  the  understanding. 

Bishop  Blougram  thinks  he  has  proved  his  points. 
Gigadibs  is  half  convinced  he  has.  But  the  Bishop, 
on  looking  back,  thinks  he  has  not  been  quite  sincere, 
that  his  reasonings  were  only  good  for  the  occasion. 
He  has  evaded  the  centre  of  the  thing.  What  he 
has  said  was  no  more  than  intellectual  fencing.  It 
certainly  is  intellectual  fencing  of  the  finest  kind. 
Both  the  Bishop  and  his  companion  are  drawn  to 
the  life ;  yet,  and  this  is  the  cleverest  thing  in  the 
poem,  we  know  that  the  Bishop  is  in  reality  a  dif- 
ferent man  from  the  picture  he  makes  of  himself. 
And  the  truth  which  in  his  talk  underlies  its 
appearance  acts  on  Gigadibs  and  sends  him  into  a 
higher  Hfe.  The  discussion  —  as  it  may  be  called 
though  the  Bishop  only  speaks  —  concerning  faith 
and  doubt  is  full  of  admirable  wisdom,  and  urges  me 
to  modify  my  statement  that  Browning  took  little 
or  no  interest  in  the  controversies  of  his  time.  Yet, 
all  through  the  fencing,  nothing  is  decided.  The 
button  is  always  on  the  Bishop's  foil.  He  never 
sends  the  rapier  home.  And  no  doubt  that  is 
the  reason  that  his  companion,  with  *'  his  sudden 
healthy  vehemence  "  did  drive  his  weapon  home 
into  life  —  and  started  for  Australia. 

Mr.  Sludge,  the  medium,  excuses  his  imposture, 


LATER  POEMS  421 

and  then  thinks  "it  may  not  altogether  be  imposture. 
For  all  he  knows  there  may  really  be  spirits  at  the 
bottom  of  it.  He  never  meant  to  cheat ;  yet  he  did 
cheat.  Yet,  even  if  he  lied,  lies  help  truth  to  live ; 
and  he  must  live  himself ;  and  God  may  have  made 
fools  for  him  to  live  on ; "  and  many  other  are  the 
twists  of  his  defence.  The  poem  is  as  UfeHke  in  its 
insight  into  the  mind  of  a  supple  cheat  as  it  is  a 
briUiant  bit  of  literature ;  but  Browning  leaves  the 
matter  unconcluded,  as  he  would  not  have  done,  I 
hold,  had  hebeen  writing  poetry.  Prince  Hohenstiel's 
defence  of  expediency  in  poHtics  is  made  by  Browning 
to  seem  now  right,  now  wrong,  because  he  assumes 
at  one  time  what  is  true  as  the  ground  of  his 
argument,  and  then  at  another  what  is  plainly  false, 
and  in  neither  case  do  the  assumptions  support  the 
arguments.  What  really  is  concluded  is  not  the 
question,  but  the  slipperiness  of  the  man  who 
argues.  And  at  the  end  of  the  poem  Browning 
comes  in  again  to  say  that  words  cannot  be  trusted 
to  hit  truth.  Language  is  inadequate  to  express  it. 
Browning  was  fond  of  saying  this.  It  does  not 
seem  worth  saying.  In  one  sense  it  is  a  truism ;  in 
another  it  resembles  nonsense.  Words  are  the  only 
way  by  which  we  can  express  truth,  or  our  nearest 
approach  to  what  we  think  it  is.  At  any  rate, 
silence,  in  spite  of  MaeterHnck,  does  not  express  it. 
Moreover,  with  regard  to  the  matter  in  hand, 
Browning  knew  well  enough  how  a  poet  would 
decide  the  question  of  expediency  he  has  here 
brought  into  debate.  He  has  decided  it  elsewhere  ; 
but  here  he  chooses  not  to  take  that  view,  that  he 
may  have  the  fun  of  exercising  his  clever  brain. 
There  is  no  reason  why  he  should  not  entertain 


422  BROWNING 

himself  and  us  in  this  way ;  but  folk  need  not  call 
this  intellectual  jumping  to  and  fro  a  poem,  or  try 
to  induce  us  to  believe  that  it  is  the  work  of  art. 

When  he  had  finished  these  products  of  a  time 
when  he  was  intoxicated  with  his  intellect,  and  of 
course  somewhat  proud  of  it,  the  poet  in  him  began 
to  revive.  This  resurrection  had  begun  in  Fifine  at 
the  Fair,  I  have  said  it  would  not  be  just  to  class 
this  poem  with  the  other  three.  It  has  many  an 
oasis  of  poetry  where  it  is  a  happiness  to  rest.  But 
the  way  between  their  palms  and  wells  is  some- 
what dreary  walking,  except  to  those  who  adore 
minute  psychology.  The  poem  is  pitilessly  long. 
If  throughout  its  length  it  were  easy  to  follow  we 
might  excuse  the  length,  but  it  is  rendered  difficult 
by  the  incessant  interchange  of  misty  personalities 
represented  by  one  personality.  Elvire,  Fifine  only 
exist  in  the  mind  of  Don  Juan ;  their  thoughts  are 
only  expressed  in  his  words  ;  their  outlines  not  only 
continually  fade  into  his,  but  his  thought  steals  into 
his  presentation  of  their  thought,  till  it  becomes 
impossible  to  individualise  them.  The  form  in 
which  Browning  wrote  the  poem,  by  which  he 
made  Don  Juan  speak  for  them,  makes  this  want 
of  clearness  and  sharpness  inevitable.  The  work 
is  done  with  a  terrible  cleverness,  but  it  is  weari- 
some at  the  last. 

The  length  also  might  be  excused  if  the  subject 
were  a  great  one  or  had  important  issues  for  man- 
kind. But,  though  it  has  its  interest  and  is  human 
enough,  it  does  not  deserve  so  many  thousand  lines 
nor  so  much  elaborate  analysis.  A  few  lyrics  or  a 
drama  of  two  acts  might  say  all  that  is  worth  saying 
on  the  matter.  What  Browning  has  taken  for  subject 


LATER  POEMS  423 

is  an  every-day  occurrence.  We  are  grateful  to  him 
for  writing  on  so  universal  a  matter,  even  though 
it  is  unimportant ;  and  he  has  tried  to  make  it 
uncommon  and  important  by  weaving  round  it  an 
intricate  lace-work  of  psychology ;  yet,  when  we  get 
down  to  its  main  lines,  it  is  the  ordinary  event, 
especially  commonplace  in  any  idle  society  which 
clings  to  outward  respectability  and  is  dreadfully 
wearied  of  it.  Our  neighbours  across  the  Channel 
call  it  La  Crise  when,  after  years  of  a  quiet,  not 
unhappy,  excellent  married  existence,  day  succeed- 
ing day  in  unbroken  continuity  of  easy  affection  and 
limited  experience,  the  man  or  the  woman,  in  full 
middle  life,  suddenly  wearies  of  the  apparent  mo- 
notony, the  uneventful  love,  the  slow  encroaching 
tide  of  the  commonplace,  and  looks  on  these  as 
fetters  on  their  freedom,  as  walls  which  shut  them 
in  from  the  vivid  interests  of  the  outside  world,  from 
the  gipsy  roving  of  the  passions.  The  time  arrives, 
when  this  becomes,  they  think,  too  great  for  en- 
durance, and  their  impatience  shows  itself  in  a  daily 
irritability  quite  new  in  the  household,  apparently 
causeless,  full  of  sudden,  inexplicable  turns  of 
thought  and  act  which  turn  the  peaceful  into  a 
tempestuous  home.  It  is  not  that  the  husband  or 
the  wife  are  inconstant  by  nature  —  to  call  Fifine  at 
the  Fair  2^  defence  of  inconstancy  is  to  lose  the  truth 
of  the  matter  —  but  it  is  the  desire  of  momentary 
change,  of  a  Hfe  set  free  from  conventional  barriers, 
of  an  outburst  into  the  unknown,  of  the  desire  for 
new  experiences,  for  something  which  will  bring 
into  play  those  parts  of  their  nature  of  which  they 
are  vaguely  conscious  but  which  are  as  yet  unused 
—  new  elements  in  their  senses,  intellect,  imagina- 


424  BROWNING 

tion,  even  in  their  spirit,  but  not  always  in  their  con- 
science. That,  for  the  time  being,  as  in  this  poem, 
is  often  shut  up  in  the  cellar,  where  its  voice  can- 
not be  heard. 

This  is,  as  I  said,  a  crisis  of  common  occurrence. 
It  may  be  rightly  directed,  its  evil  controlled,  and 
a  noble  object  chosen  for  the  satisfaction  of  the 
impulse.  Here,  that  is  not  the  case ;  and  Browning 
describes  its  beginning  with  great  freshness  and 
force  as  Juan  walks  down  to  the  fair  with  Elvire. 
Nor  has  he  omitted  to  treat  other  forms  of  it  in  his 
poetry.  He  knew  how  usual  it  was,  but  he  has 
here  made  it  unusual  by  putting  it  into  the  heart 
of  a  man  who,  before  he  yielded  to  it,  was  pleased 
to  make  it  the  subject  of  a  wandering  metaphysi- 
cal analysis ;  who  sees  not  only  how  it  appears  to 
himself  in  three  or  four  moods,  but  how  it  looks  to 
the  weary,  half-jealous  wife  to  whom  he  is  so  rude 
while  he  strives  to  be  courteous,  and  to  the  bold, 
free,  conscienceless  child  of  Nature  whose  favour 
he  buys,  and  with  whom,  after  all  his  barren  meta- 
physics, he  departs,  only  to  attain,  when  his  brief 
spell  of  foolish  freedom  is  over,  loneliness  and 
cynic  satiety.  It  may  amuse  us  to  circle  with  him 
through  his  arguments,  though  every  one  knows  he 
will  yield  at  last  and  that  yielding  is  more  honest 
than  his  talk ;  but  what  we  ask  is  —  Was  the  matter 
worth  the  trouble  of  more  than  two  thousand  lines 
of  long-winded  verse  "l  Was  it  worth  an  artist's  de- 
votion }  or,  to  ask  a  question  I  would  not  ask  if  the 
poem  were  good  art,  is  it  of  any  real  importance 
to  mankind  t  Is  it,  finally,  anything  more  than  an 
intellectual  exercise  of  Browning  on  which  solitary 
psychologists  may,  in  their  turn,  employ  their  neat 


LATER  POEMS 


425 


intelligence  ?  This  poem,  with  the  exceptions  of 
some  episodes  of  noble  poetry,  is,  as  well  as  the 
three  others,  a  very  harlequinade  of  the  intellect. 

I  may  say,  though  this  is  hypercritical,  that  the 
name  of  Don  Juan  is  a  mistake.  Every  one  knows 
Don  Juan,  and  to  imagine  him  arguing  in  the 
fashion  of  this  poem  is  absurd.  He  would  instantly, 
without  a  word,  have  left  Elvire,  and  abandoned 
Fifine  in  a  few  days.  The  connection  then  of  the 
long  discussions  in  the  poem  with  his  name  throws 
an  air  of  unreality  over  the  whole  of  it.  The  Don 
Juan  of  the  poem  had  much  better  have  stayed 
with  Elvire,  who  endured  him  with  weary  patience. 
I  have  no  doubt  that  he  bored  Fifine  to  extinction. 

The  poems  that  follow  these  four  volumes  are 
mixed  work,  half  imaginative,  half  intellectual. 
Sometimes  both  kinds  are  found,  separated,  in  the 
same  poem. ;  sometimes  in  one  volume  half  the 
poems  will  be  imaginative  and  the  other  half  not. 
Could  the  imaginative  and  intellectual  elements 
have  now  been  fused  as  they  were  in  his  earlier 
work,  it  were  well ;  but  they  were  not.  They 
worked  apart.  His  witful  poems  are  all  wit,  his 
analytical  poems  are  all  analysis,  and  his  imagina- 
tive poems,  owing  to  this  want  of  fusion,  have  not 
the  same  intellectual  strength  they  had  in  other 
days.  Niimpholeptos^  for  instance,  an  imaginative 
poem,  full  too  of  refined  and  fanciful  emotion,  is 
curiously  wanting  in  intellectual  foundation. 

The  Ntimpholeptos  is  in  the  volume  entitled  Pac- 
chiarotto^  a7td  how  he  worked  i7i  Distemper,  Part  of 
the  poems  in  it  are  humorous,  such  as  Pacchiarotto 
and  Filippo  Baldimicci,  excellent  pieces  of  agreeable 
wit,  containing  excellent  advice  concerning  life.  One 


426  BROWNING 

reads  them,  is  amused  by  them,  and  rarely  desires 
to  read  them  again.  In  the  same  volume  there  are 
some  severe  pieces,  sharply  ridiculing  his  critics. 
In  the  old  days,  when  he  wrote  fine  imaginative 
poetry,  out  of  his  heart  and  brain  working  together, 
he  did  not  mind  what  the  critics  said,  and  only 
flashed  a  scoff  or  two  at  them  in  his  creation  of 
Naddo  in  Sordello.  But  now  when  he  wrote  a  great 
deal  of  his  poetry  out  of  his  brain  alone,  he  became 
sensitive  to  criticism.  For  that  sort  of  poetry  does 
not  rest  on  the  sure  foundation  which  is  given  by 
the  consciousness  the  imagination  has  of  its  absolute 
rightness.  He  expresses  his  needless  soreness  with 
plenty  of  wit  in  Pacchiarotto  and  in  the  Epilogiiey 
criticises  his  critics,  and  displays  his  good  opinion  of 
his  work  —  no  doubt  of  these  later  poems,  like  The 
Inn  Album  and  the  rest  —  with  a  little  too  much  of 
self-congratulation.  *'  The  poets  pour  us  wine,"  he 
says,  "and  mine  is  strong  —  the  strong  wine  of  the 
loves  and  hates  and  thoughts  of  man.  But  it  is  not 
sweet  as  well,  and  my  critics  object.  Were  it  so,  it 
would  be  more  popular  than  it  is.  Sweetness  and 
strength  do  not  go  together,  and  I  have  strength." 
But  that  is  not  the  real  question.  The  question 
is  —  Is  the  strength  poetical }  Has  it  imagination } 
It  is  rough,  powerful,  full  of  humanity,  and  that  is 
well.  But  is  it  half  prose,  or  wholly  prose  .•*  Or  is 
it  poetry,  or  fit  to  be  called  so }  He  thinks  that 
Prince  Hohenstiel^  ox  Red  Cotton  Night-Cap  Country ^ 
are  poetry.  They  are,  it  is  true,  strong ;  and  they 
are  not  sweet.  But  have  they  the  strength  of  poetry 
in  them,  and  not  the  strength  of  something  else 
altogether  .'*  That  is  the  question  he  ought  to  have 
answered,  and  it  does  not  occur  to  him. 


LATER  POEMS  427 

Yet,  he  was,  in  this  very  book,  half-way  out  of 
this  muddle.  There  are  poems  in  it,  just  as  strong 
as  The  Inn  Album,  but  with  the  ineffable  spirit  of 
imaginative  emotion  and  thought  clasped  together 
in  them,  so  that  the  strong  is  stronger,  and  the 
humanity  deeper  than  in  the  pieces  he  thought, 
being  deceived  by  the  Understanding,  were  more 
strong  than  the  poems  of  old.  In  Bifurcation,  in  St. 
Martin  s  Summer,  the  diviner  spirit  breathes.  There 
is  that  other  poem  called  Forgive7iess  of  which  I  have 
already  spoken — one  of  his  masterpieces.  Cenciaja, 
which  may  be  classed  with  Forgiveness  as  a  study  of 
the  passion  of  hatred,  is  not  so  good  as  its  comrade, 
but  its  hatred  is  shown  in  a  mean  character  and  for 
a  meaner  motive.  And  the  Prologue,  in  its  rhythm 
and  pleasure,  its  subtlety  of  thought,  its  depth  of 
feeling,  and  its  close  union  of  both,  recalls  his 
earlier  genius. 

The  first  of  the  Pisgah  Sights  is  a  jewel.  It  is 
like  a  poem  by  Goethe,  only  Goethe  would  have 
seen  the  "  sight "  not  when  he  was  dying,  but  when 
he  was  alive  to  his  finger-tips.  The  second  is  not 
like  Goethe's  work,  nor  Browning's  ;  but  it  is  a  true 
picture  of  what  many  feel  and  are.  So  is  Fears  and 
Scruples.  As  to  Natural  Magic,  surely  it  is  the 
most  charming  of  compliments,  most  enchantingly 
expressed. 

The  next  volume  of  original  poems  was  La 
Saisiaz  and  the  Two  Poets  of  Croisic.  The  Croisic 
Poets  are  agreeable  studies,  written  with  verve  and 
lucidity,  of  two  fantastic  events  which  lifted  these 
commonplace  poets  suddenly  into  fame.  They  do 
well  to  amuse  an  idle  hour.  The  end  of  both  is 
interesting.  That  of  the  first,  which  begins  with 
stanza  lix.,  discusses  the  question :   "  Who  cares, 


428  BROWNING 

stanza  lix.,  discusses  the  question  :  "  Who  cares 
how  such  a  mediocrity  as  Rene  lived  after  the 
fame  of  his  prophecy  died  out  ?  "  *  And  Browning 
answers  — 

Well,  I  care  —  intimately  care  to  have 
Experience  how  a  human  creature  felt 

In  after  life,  who  bore  the  burthen  grave 
Of  certainly  believing  God  had  dealt 

For  once  directly  with  him :  did  not  rave 
—  A  maniac,  did  not  find  his  reason  melt 

—  An  idiot,  but  went  on,  in  peace  or  strife, 

The  world's  way,  lived  an  ordinary  life. 

The  solution  Browning  offers  is  interesting,  be- 
cause it  recalls  a  part  of  the  experiences  of  Lazarus 
in  the  Epistle  to  Karshish.  Rene,  like  Lazarus,  but 
only  for  a  moment,  has  lived  in  the  eternal. 

Are  such  revelations  possible,  is  his  second 
question.  Yes,  he  answers ;  and  the  form  of  the 
answer  belongs  to  the  theory  of  hfe  laid  down  in 
Paracelsus.  Such  sudden  openings  of  the  greater 
world  are  at  intervals,  as  to  Abt  Vogler,  given  by 
God  to  men. 

The  end  of  the  second  asks  what  is  the  true  test 
of  the  greater  poet,  when  people  take  on  them  to 
weigh  the  worth  of  poets  —  who  was  better,  best, 
this,  that,  or  the  other  bard  1  When  I  read  this  I 
trembled,  knowing  that  I  had  compared  him  with 
Tennyson.  But  when  I  heard  the  answer  I  trem- 
bled no  more.     "  The  best  poet  of  any  two  is  the 

*  Rene  Gentilhomme,  page  to  Prince  Conde,  heir  of  France 
since  Louis  XIII.  and  his  brother  Gaston  were  childless,  is  sur- 
prised, while  writing  a  love  poem,  by  a  lightning  flash  which 
shatters  a  marble  ducal  crown.  He  thinks  this  a  revelation  from 
God,  and  he  prophesies  that  a  Dauphin  will  be  born  to  the  child- 
less Queen.  The  Dauphin  was  born,  and  Rene  pushed  suddenly 
into  fame. 


LATER  POEMS  429 

one  who  leads  the  happier  Hfe.  The  strong  and 
joyful  poet  is  the  greater."  But  this  is  a  test  of  the 
greatness  of  a  man,  not  necessarily  of  a  poet.  And, 
moreover,  in  this  case,  Tennyson  and  Browning  both 
lived  equally  happy  lives.  Both  were  strong  to  the 
end,  and  imaginative  joy  was  their  companion.  But 
the  verse  in  which  Browning  winds  up  his  answer 
is  one  of  the  finest  in  his  poetry. 

So,  force  is  sorrow,  and  each  sorrow,  force ; 
What  then?  since  Swiftness  gives  the  charioteer 

The  palm,  his  hope  be  in  the  vivid  horse 

Whose  neck  God  clothed  with  thunder,  not  the  steer 

Sluggish  and  safe!     Yoke  Hatred,  Crime,  Remorse, 
Despair ;  but  ever  mid  the  whirling  fear, 
Let,  through  the  tumult,  break  the  poet's  face 
Radiant,  assured  his  wild  slaves  win  the  race ! 

La  Saisiaz  is  a  more  important  poem :  it  describes 
the  sudden  death  of  his  friend,  Ann  Egerton  Smith, 
and  passes  from  that,  and  all  he  felt  concerning  it, 
into  an  argument  on  the  future  life  of  the  soul,  with 
the  assumption  that  God  is,  and  the  soul.  The 
argument  is  interesting,  but  does  not  concern  us 
here.  What  does  concern  us  is  that  Browning  has 
largely  recovered  his  poetical  way  of  treating  a 
subject.  He  is  no  longer  outside  of  it,  but  in  it. 
He  does  not  use  it  as  a  means  of  exercising  his 
brains  only.  It  is  steeped  in  true  and  vital  feehng, 
and  the  deep  friendship  he  had  for  his  friend  fills 
even  the  theological  argument  with  a  passionate 
intensity.  Nevertheless,  the  argument  is  perilously 
near  the  work  of  the  understanding  alone  —  as  if  a 
question  like  that  of  immortality  could  receive  any 
solution  from  the  hands  of  the  understanding. 
Only  each  man,  in  the  recesses  of  his  own  spirit 
with  God,  can  solve  that  question  for  himself,  and 


430  BROWNING 

not  for  another.  That  is  Browning's  position  when 
he  writes  as  a  poet,  and  no  one  has  written  more 
positively  on  the  subject.  But  when  he  submits 
the  question  to  reasoning,  he  wavers,  as  he  does 
here,  and  leaves  the  question  more  undecided  than 
anywhere  else  in  his  work.  This  is  a  pity,  but  it  is 
the  natural  penalty  of  his  partial  abandonment  of 
the  poetic  for  the  prosaic  realm,  of  the  imagination 
for  the  understanding,  of  the  Reason  for  reason- 


CHAPTER   XVIII 

THE  LAST  POEMS 

TWO  Volumes  of  Dramatic  Idyls,  one  in  1879, 
the  other  in  1880,  followed  La  Saisiaz  and 
TJie  Tivo  Poets  of  Croisic.  These  are  also  mixed 
books,  composed,  partly  of  studies  of  character 
written  in  rhythmical  prose,  and  partly  of  poems 
wrought  out  of  the  pure  imagination.  Three  of 
them — if  they  were  written  at  this  time  —  show  how 
the  Greek  legends  still  dwelt  with  Browning ;  and 
they  brought  with  them  the  ocean-scent,  heroic  life, 
and  mythical  charm  of  Athenian  thought.  It  would 
be  difficult,  if  one  could  write  of  them  at  all,  not  to 
write  of  them  poetically  ;  diwdi  Pheidippides.EchetloSy 
Pa7i  and  Luna  are  alive  with  force,  imaginative  joy, 
and  the  victorious  sense  the  poet  has  of  having 
conquered  his  material.  Pheidippides  is  as  full  of 
fire,  of  careless  heroism,  as  Herve  Riel,  and  told  in 
as  ringing  verse.  The  versing  of  EchetloSy  its  rugged, 
rousing  sound,  its  movement,  are  in  most  excellent 
harmony  with  the  image  of  the  rude,  giant  "  Holder 
of  the  ploughshare,"  who  at  Marathon  drove  his 
furrows  through  the  Persians  and  rooted  up  the 
Mede.  Browning  has  gathered  into  one  picture  and 
one  sound  the  whole  spirit  of  the  story.  Pan  and 
Lima  is  a  bold  re-rendering  of  the  myth  that  Vergil 

431 


432  BROWNING 

enshrines,  and  the  greater  part  of  it  is  of  such  poetic 
freshness  that  I  think  it  must  be  a  waif  from  the 
earlier  years  of  his  poetry.  Nor  is  there  better 
imaginative  work  in  his  descriptive  poetry  than  the 
image  of  the  naked  moon,  in  virginal  distress,  flying 
for  refuge  through  the  gazing  heaven  to  the 
succourable  cloud  —  fleece  on  fleece  of  piled-up 
snow,  drowsily  patient  —  where  Pan  lay  in  ambush 
for  her  beauty. 

Among  these  more  gracious  idyls,  one  of  singular 
rough  power  tells  the  ghastly  tale  of  the  mother  who 
gave  up  her  little  children  to  the  wolves  to  save 
herself.  Browning  liked  this  poem,  and  the  end  he 
added  to  the  story  —  how  the  carpenter,  Ivan,  when 
the  poor,  frightened  woman  confessed,  lifted  his  axe 
and  cut  off  her  head;  how  he  knew  that  he  did 
right,  and  was  held  to  have  done  right  by  the  village 
and  its  pope.  The  sin  by  which  a  mother  sacrificed 
the  lives  of  her  children  to  save  her  own  was  out  of 
Nature :  the  punishment  should  be  outside  of  ordinary 
law.  It  is  a  piteous  tale,  and  few  things  in  Browning 
equal  the  horror  of  the  mother's  vain  attempt  to  hide 
her  crime  while  she  confesses  it.  Nor  does  he  often 
show  greater  imaginative  skill  in  metrical  movement 
than  when  he  describes  in  galloping  and  pattering 
verse  the  grey  pack  emerging  from  the  forest,  their 
wild  race  for  the  sledge,  and  their  demon  leader. 

The  other  idyls  in  these  two  volumes  are  full  of 
interest  for  those  who  care  for  psychological  studies 
expressed  in  verse.  What  the  vehicle  of  verse  does 
for  them  is  to  secure  conciseness  and  suggestiveness 
in  the  rendering  of  remote,  daring,  and  unexpected 
turns  of  thought  and  feeling,  and  especially  of  con- 
science.   Yet  the  poems  themselves  cannot  be  called 


THE  LAST  POEMS  433 

concise.     Their  subjects  are  not  large  enough,  nor 
indeed  agreeable  enough,  to  excuse  their  length. 
Goethe  would  have  put  them  into  a  short  lyrical 
form.     It  is  impossible  not  to  regret,  as  we  read 
them,  the  Browning  of  the  Dramatic  Lyrics.    More- 
over, some  of  them  are  needlessly  ugly.     Halbert 
and  Hob  —  and  in  Jocoseria  —  Donald,  are  hateful 
subjects,  and  their  treatment  does  not  redeem  them  ; 
unlike   the   treatment   of    Ivan    Ivanovitch  which 
does  lift  the  pain  of  the  story  into  the  high  realms 
of  pity  and  justice.     Death,  swift  death,  was  not 
only  the  right  judgment,  but  also  the  most  pitiful. 
Had  the  mother  lived,  an  hour's  memory  would  have 
been  intolerable  torture.  Nevertheless,  if  Browning, 
in  his  desire  to  represent  the  whole  of  humanity, 
chose  to  treat  these  lower  forms  of  human  nature,  I 
suppose  we  must  accept  them  as  an  integral  part  of 
his  work ;  and,  at  least,  there  can  be  no  doubt  of 
their  ability,  and  of  the  brilliancy  of  their  psycho- 
logical surprises.     Ned  Bratts  is  a  monument  of 
cleverness,  as  well  as  of  fine  characterisation  of  a 
momentary  outburst  of  conscience  in  a  man  who  had 
none  before  ;  and  who  would  have  lost  it  in  an  hour, 
had  he  not  been  hanged  on  the  spot.     The  quick, 
agile,  unpremeditated  turns  of  wit  in  this  poem,  as 
in  some   of   the  others,  are   admirably  easy,  and 
happily  expressed.     Indeed,  in  these  later  poems 
of   character  and   event,  ingenuity  or  nimbleness 
of   intellect  is   the   chief   element,   and   it   is    ac- 
companied by  a  facile  power  which  is  sometimes 
rude,  often  careless,    always   inventive,  fully  fan- 
tastical,   and   rarely   imaginative    in    the    highest 
sense  of  the  word.     Moreover,  as  was  not  the  case 
of  old,  they  have,  beyond  the  story,  a  direct  teaching 

2  F 


434 


BROWNING 


aim,  which,  while  it   lowers   them  as  art,  is  very 
agreeable  to  the  ethical  psychologist. 

Jocoscria  has  poems  of  a  higher  quality,  some  of 
which,  like  the  lovely  Never  the  Time  and  Place^ 
have  been  already  quoted.  Ixioii  is  too  obscurely 
put  to  attain  its  end  with  the  general  pubHc.  But 
it  may  be  recommended,  though  vainly,  to  those 
theologians  who,  hungry  for  the  Divine  Right  of 
torture,  build  their  God,  like  Caliban,  out  of  their 
own  minds ;  who,  foolish  enough  to  believe  that 
the  everlasting  endurance  of  evil  is  a  necessary 
guarantee  of  the  everlasting  endurance  of  good,  are 
still  bold  and  bad  enough  to  proclaim  the  abominable 
lie  of  eternal  punishment.  They  need  that  spirit 
of  the  little  child  whom  Christ  placed  in  the  midst 
of  his  disciples ;  and  in  gaining  which,  after  living  the 
life  of  the  lover,  the  warrior,  the  poet,  the  statesman, 
Jochanan  Hakkadosh  found  absolute  peace  and  joy. 
Few  poems  contain  more  of  Browning's  matured 
theory  of  life  than  this  of  the  Jewish  Rabbi ;  and 
its  seriousness  is  happily  mingled  with  imaginative 
illustrations  and  with  racy  wit.  The  sketch  of 
Tsaddik,  who  puts  us  in  mind  of  Wagner  in  the 
Faust ^  is  done  with  a  sarcastic  joy  in  exposing  the 
Phihstine,  and  with  a  delight  in  its  own  cleverness 
which  is  fascinating. 

FerishtaJi  s  Fancies  and  Parleyings  with  Certain 
People  followed  Joeoseria  in  1884  and  1887.  The 
first  of  these  books  is  much  the  better  of  the 
two.  A  certain  touch  of  romance  is  given  by  the 
Dervish,  by  the  Fables  with  which  he  illustrates  his 
teaching,  and  by  the  Eastern  surroundings.  Some 
of  the  stories  are  well  told,  and  their  scenery  is 
truthfully  wrought  and  in  good  colour.     The  sub- 


THE  LAST  POEMS  435 

jects  are  partly  theological,  with  always  a  reference 
to  human  life ;  and  partly  of  the  affections  and  their 
working.  It  is  natural  to  a  poet,  and  delightful  in 
Browning,  to  find  him  in  his  old  age  dwelling  from 
poem  to  poem  on  the  pre-eminence  of  love,  on  love 
as  the  ultimate  judge  of  all  questions.  He  asserts 
this  again  and  again ;  with  the  greatest  force  in 
A  Pillar  at  Sebzevar,  and,  more  lightly,  in  Cherries. 
Yet,  and  this  is  a  pity,  he  is  not  satisfied  with  the 
decision  of  love,  but  spends  pages  in  argumentative 
discussions  which  lead  him  away  from  that  poetical 
treatment  of  the  subjects  which  love  alone,  as  the 
master,  would  have  enabled  him  to  give.  However, 
the  treatment  that  love  gives  we  find  in  the  lyrics  at 
the  end  of  each  Fancy  ;  and  some  of  these  lyrics  are 
of  such  delicate  and  subtle  beauty  that  I  am  tempted 
to  think  that  they  were  written  at  an  earlier  period, 
and  their  Fancies  composed  to  fit  them.  If  they 
were  written  now,  it  is  plain  that  age  had  not 
disenabled  him  from  walking  with  pleasure  and 
power  among  those  sweet,  enamelled  meadows  of 
poetry  in  whose  soil  he  now  thought  great  poetry  did 
not  grow.  And  when  we  read  the  lyrics,  our  regret 
is  all  the  more  deep  that  he  chose  the  thorn-clad  and 
desert  lands,  where  barren  argument  goes  round 
and  round  its  subjects  without  ever  finding  the  true 
path  to  their  centre. 

He  lost  himself  more  completely  in  this  error  in 
Parleyings  with  Certain  People^  in  which  book, 
with  the  exception  of  the  visionary  landscapes  in 
Gerard  de  Lairesse^  and  some  few  passages  in 
Francis  Fnrini  and  Charles  Avis  on,  imagination, 
such  as  belongs  to  a  poet,  has  deserted  Browning. 
He  feels  himself  as  if  this  might  be  said  of  him ; 


436  BROWNING 

and  he  asks  in  Gerard  de  Lairesse  if  he  has  lost 
the  poetic  touch,  the  poetic  spirit,  because  he  writes 
of  the  soul,  of  facts,  of  things  invisible  —  not  of 
fancy's  feignings,  not  of  the  things  perceived  by 
the  senses?  *' I  can  do  this,"  he  answers,  ''if  I 
like,  as  well  as  you,"  and  he  paints  the  landscape  of 
a  whole  day  filled  with  mythological  figures.  The 
passage  is  poetry ;  we  see  that  he  has  not  lost  his 
poetic  genius.  But,  he  calls  it  "fooHng,"  and  then 
contrasts  the  spirit  of  Greek  lore  with  the  spirit  of 
immortal  hope  and  cheer  which  he  possesses,  with 
his  faith  that  there  is  for  man  a  certainty  of  Spring. 
But  that  is  not  the  answer  to  his  question.  It  only 
says  that  the  spirit  which  animates  him  now  is 
higher  than  the  Greek  spirit.  It  does  not  answer 
the  question  —  Whether  Daniel  Bartoli  or  Charles 
Avison  or  any  of  these  Parleymgs  even  approach  as 
poetry  Paracelsus^  the  Drainatic  Lyrics^  or  Men  and 
Wonieii.  They  do  not.  Nor  has  their  intellectual 
work  the  same  force,  unexpectedness,  and  certainty 
it  had  of  old.  Nevertheless,  these  Pajdeyings,  at 
the  close  of  the  poet's  life,  and  with  biographical 
touches  which  give  them  vitality,  enshrine  Brown- 
ing's convictions  with  regard  to  some  of  the  greater 
and  lesser  problems  of  human  life.  And  when  his 
personality  is  vividly  present  in  them,  the  argu- 
ment, being  thrilled  with  passionate  feeling,  rises, 
but  heavily  like  a  wounded  eagle,  into  an  imagina- 
tive world. 

The  sub-consciousness  in  Browning's  mind  to 
which  I  have  alluded  —  that  these  later  produc- 
tions of  his  were  not  as  poetical  as  his  earlier  work 
and  needed  defence  —  is  the  real  subject  of  a  re- 
markable little  poem  at  the  end  of  the  second  vol- 


THE  LAST  POEMS  437 

ume  of  the  Dramatic  Idyls.  He  is  thinking  of 
himself  as  poet,  perhaps  of  that  double  nature  in 
him  which  on  one  side  was  quick  to  see  and  love 
beauty ;  and  on  the  other,  to  see  facts  and  love 
their  strength.  Sometimes  the  sensitive  predomi- 
nated. He  was  only  the  lover  of  beauty  whom 
everything  that  touched  him  urged  into  song. 

"  Touch  him  ne'er  so  lightly,  into  song  he  broke : 
Soil  so  quick-receptive,  —  not  one  feather-seed, 
Not  one  flower-dust  fell  but  straight  its  fall  awoke 
Vitalizing  virtue :  song  would  song  succeed 
Sudden  as  spontaneous  —  prove  a  poet-soul ! " 

This,  which  Browning  puts  on  the  lips  of  another, 
is  not  meant,  we  are  told,  to  describe  himself.  But 
it  does  describe  one  side  of  him  very  well,  and  the 
origin  and  conduct  of  a  number  of  his  earlier 
poems.  But  now,  having  changed  his  manner, 
even  the  principles  of  his  poetry,  he  describes  him- 
self as  different  from  that  —  as  a  sterner,  more  iron 
poet,  and  the  work  he  now  does  as  more  likely  to 
endure,  and  be  a  power  in  the  world  of  men.  He 
was  curiously  mistaken. 

Indeed,  he  cries,  is  that  the  soil  in  which  a  poet 
grows  ? 

"  Rock's  the  song-soil  rather,  surface  hard  and  bare : 
Sun  and  dew  their  mildness,  storm  and  frost  their  rage 

Vainly  both  expend,  —  few  flowers  awaken  there  : 
Quiet  in  its  cleft  broods  —  what  the  after-age 
Knows  and  names  a  pine,  a  nation's  heritage." 

In  this  sharp  division,  as  in  his  Epilogue  to 
Pacchiarotto,  he  misses  the  truth.  It  is  almost 
needless  to  say  that  a  poet  can  be  sensitive  to  beauty, 
and  also  to  the  stern  facts  of  the  moral  and  spiritual 
struggle  of  mankind  through  evil  to  good.    All  the 


438  BROWNING 

great  poets  have  been  sensitive  to  both  and  mingled 
them  in  their  work.  They  were  ideal  and  real  in 
both  the  flower  and  the  pine.  They  are  never  forced 
to  choose  one  or  other  of  these  aims  or  Hves  in  their 
poetry.  They  mingled  facts  and  fancies,  the  in- 
tellectual and  the  imaginative.  They  lived  in  the 
whole  world  of  the  outward  and  the  inward,  of  the 
senses  and  the  soul.  Truth  and  beauty  were  one  to 
them.  This  division  of  which  Browning  speaks  was 
the  unfortunate  result  of  that  struggle  between 
his  intellect  and  his  imagination  on  which  I  have 
dwelt.  In  old  days  it  was  not  so  with  him.  His 
early  poetry  had  sweetness  with  strength,  stern 
thinking  with  tender  emotion,  love  of  beauty  with 
love  of  truth,  idealism  with  realism,  Nature  with 
humanity,  fancy  with  fact.  And  this  is  the  equip- 
ment of  the  great  poet.  When  he  divides  these 
qualities  each  from  the  other,  and  is  only  aesthetic 
or  only  severe  in  his  realism  ;  only  the  worshipper  of 
Nature  or  only  the  worshipper  of  human  nature; 
only  the  poet  of  beauty  or  only  the  poet  of  austere 
fact ;  only  the  idealist  or  only  the  realist ;  only  of 
the  senses  or  only  of  the  soul —  he  may  be  a  poet, 
but  not  a  great  poet.  And  as  the  singular  pursuit  of 
the  realistic  is  almost  always  bound  up  with  pride, 
because  realism  does  not  carry  us  beyond  ourselves 
into  the  infinite  where  we  are  humbled,  the  realistic 
poetry  loses  imagination;  its  love  of  love  tends 
to  become  self-love,  or  love  of  mere  cleverness. 
And  then  its  poetic  elements  slowly  die. 

There  was  that,  as  I  have  said,  in  Browning  which 
resisted  this  sad  conclusion,  but  the  resistance  was 
not  enough  to  prevent  a  great  loss  of  poetic  power. 
But  whatever  he  lost,  there  was  one  poetic  temper 


THE  LAST  POEMS  439 

of  mind  which  never  failed  him,  the  heroic  temper 
of  the  faithful  warrior  for  God  and  man  ;  there  was 
one  ideal  view  of  humanity  which  dominated  all  his 
work ;  there  was  one  principle  which  directed  all  his 
verse  to  celebrate  the  struggle  of  humanity  towards 
the  perfection  for  which  God,  he  believed,  had 
destined  it.  These  things  underlie  all  the  poems  in 
FerisJitaJi  s  Fancies  and  the  Parleyhigs  with  Certain 
People,  and  give  to  them  the  uplifted,  noble  trumpet 
note  with  which  at  times  they  are  animated.  The 
same  temper  and  principle,  the  same  view  of 
humanity  emerge  in  that  fine  lyric  which  is  the 
Epilogue  to  FerishtaJis  Fancies^  and  in  the  Epilogue 
to  Asolando. 

The  first  sees  a  vision  of  the  present  and  the 
future  in  which  all  the  battle  of  our  life  passes  into 
a  glorious  end  ;  nor  does  the  momentary  doubt  that 
occurs  at  the  close  of  the  poem  —  that  his  belief 
in  a  divine  conclusion  of  our  strife  may  only  have 
been  caused  by  his  own  happiness  in  love  —  really 
trouble  his  conviction.  That  love  itself  is  part  of 
the  power  which  makes  the  noble  conclusion  sure. 
The  certainty  of  this  conclusion  made  his  courage 
in  the  fight  unwavering,  despair  impossible,  joy  in 
battle,  duty ;  and  to  be  "  ever  a  fighter "  in  the 
foremost  rank  the  highest  privilege  of  man. 

Then  the  cloud-rift  broadens,  spanning  earth  that's  under, 
Wide  our  world  displays  its  worth,  man's  strife  and  strife's 
success : 

All  the  good  and  beauty,  wonder  crowning  wonder. 

Till  my  heart  and  soul  applaud  perfection,  nothing  less. 

And  for  that  reason,  because  of  the  perfectness  to 
come,  Browning  lived  every  hour  of  his  life  for  good 
and  against  wrong.    He  said  with  justice  of  himself, 


440  BROWNING 

and  with  justice  he  brought  the  ideal  aim  and  the 
real  effort  together : 

I  looked  beyond  the  world  for  truth  and  beauty : 
Sought,  found,  and  did  my  duty. 

Nor,  almost  in  the  very  grasp  of  death,  did  this 
faith  fail  him.  He  kept,  in  the  midst  of  a  fretful, 
slothful,  waiUng  world,  where  prophets  Hke  Carlyle 
and  Ruskin  were  as  impatient  and  bewildered,  as 
lamenting  and  despondent,  as  the  decadents  they 
despised,  the  temper  of  his  Herakles  in  Balaustion. 
He  left  us  that  temper  as  his  last  legacy,  and  he 
could  not  have  left  us  a  better  thing.  We  may  hear 
it  in  his  last  poem,  and  bind  it  about  our  hearts  in 
sorrow  and  joy,  in  battle  and  peace,  in  the  hour  of 
death  and  the  days  of  judgment. 

At  the  midnight  in  the  silence  of  the  sleep-time, 

When  you  set  your  fancies  free, 
Will  they  pass  to  where  —  by  death,  fools  think,  imprisoned  — 
Low  he  lies  who  once  so  loved  you,  whom  you  loved  so, 

—  Pity  me? 

Oh  to  love  so,  be  so  loved,  yet  so  mistaken  ! 

What  had  I  on  earth  to  do 
With  the  slothful,  with  the  mawkish,  the  unmanly  ? 
Like  the  aimless,  helpless,  hopeless,  did  I  drivel 

—  Being  —  who? 

One  who  never  turned  his  back,  but  marched  breast  forward. 

Never  doubted  clouds  would  break, 
Never   dreamed,  though   right   were   worsted,  wrong  would 

triumph. 
Held  we  fall  to  rise,  are  baffled  to  fight  better, 

Sleep  to  wake. 

No,  at  noonday  in  the  bustle  of  man's  work-time 

Greet  the  unseen  with  a  cheer  ! 
Bid  him  forward,  breast  and  back  as  either  should  be, 
"  Strive  and  thrive  ! "  cry  "  Speed,  —  fight  on,  fare  ever 

There  as  here  ! " 


THE  LAST  POEMS  441 

With  these  high  words  he  ended  a  long  Ufe,  and 
his  memory  still  falls  upon  us,  like  the  dew  which 
fell  on  Paradise.  It  was  a  life  lived  fully,  kindly, 
lovingly,  at  its  just  height  from  the  beginning  to 
the  end.  No  fear,  no  vanity,  no  lack  of  interest, 
no  complaint  of  the  world,  no  anger  at  criticism, 
no  villain  fancies  disturbed  his  soul.  No  laziness, 
no  feebleness  in  effort  injured  his  work,  no  desire 
for  money,  no  faltering  of  aspiration,  no  pander- 
ing of  his  gift  and  genius  to  please  the  world, 
no  surrender  of  art  for  the  sake  of  fame  or  filthy 
lucre,  no  falseness  to  his  ideal,  no  base  pessimism, 
no  slavery  to  science  yet  no  boastful  ignorance 
of  its  good,  no  morbid  naturalism,  no  devotion  to 
the  false  forms  of  beauty,  no  despair  of  man,  no 
retreat  from  men  into  a  world  of  sickly  or  vain 
beauty,  no  abandonment  of  the  great  ideas  or  dis- 
belief in  their  mastery,  no  enfeeblement  of  reason 
such  as  at  this  time  walks  hand  in  hand  with  the 
worship  of  the  mere  discursive  intellect,  no  lack 
of  joy  and  healthy  vigour  and  keen  inquiry  and 
passionate  interest  in  humanity.  Scarcely  any 
special  bias  can  be  found  running  through  his 
work ;  on  the  contrary  an  incessant  change  of  sub- 
ject and  manner,  combined  with  a  strong  but  not 
overweening  individuality,  raced,  like  blood  through 
the  body,  through  every  vein  of  his  labour.  Crea- 
tive and  therefore  joyful,  receptive  and  therefore 
thoughtful,  at  one  with  humanity  and  therefore 
loving ;  aspiring  to  God  and  believing  in  God,  and 
therefore  steeped  to  the  tips  in  radiant  Hope ;  at 
one  with  the  past,  passionate  with  the  present,  and 
possessing  by  faith  an  endless  and  glorious  future 
—  this  was  a  life  lived  on  the  top  of  the  wave,  and 


442  BROWNING 

moving  with  its  motion  from  youth  to  manhood, 
from  manhood  to  old  age. 

There  is  no  need  to  mourn  for  his  departure. 
Nothing  feeble  has  been  done,  nothing  which  lowers 
the  note  of  his  life,  nothing  we  can  regret  as  less 
than  his  native  strength.  His  last  poem  was  like 
the  last  look  of  the  Phoenix  to  the  sun  before  the 
sunhght  lights  the  odorous  pyre  from  which  the 
new-created  Bird  will  spring.  And  as  if  the  Muse 
of  Poetry  wished  to  adorn  the  image  of  his  death, 
he  passed  away  amid  a  world  of  beauty,  and  in  the 
midst  of  a  world  endeared  to  him  by  love.  Italy 
was  his  second  country.  In  Florence  lies  the  wife 
of  his  heart.  In  every  city  he  had  friends,  friends 
not  only  among  men  and  women,  but  friends  in 
every  ancient  wall,  in  every  fold  of  Apennine  and 
Alp,  in  every  breaking  of  the  blue  sea,  in  every 
forest  of  pines,  in  every  Church  and  Palace  and 
Town  Hall,  in  every  painting  that  great  art  had 
wrought,  in  every  storied  market  place,  in  every 
great  life  which  had  adorned,  honoured,  and  made 
romantic  Italy ;  the  great  mother  of  Beauty,  at 
whose  breasts  have  hung  and  whose  milk  have 
sucked  all  the  arts  and  all  the  literatures  of  modern 
Europe.  Venice  saw  and  mourned  his  death.  The 
sea  and  sky  and  mountain  glory  of  the  city  he 
loved  so  well  encompassed  him  with  her  beauty ; 
and  their  soft  graciousness,  their  temperate  power 
of  joy  and  life  made  his  departure  peaceful.  Strong 
and  tender  in  life,  his  death  added  a  new  fairness 
to  his  life.  Mankind  is  fortunate  to  have  so  noble 
a  memory,  so  full  and  excellent  a  work,  to  rest 
upon  and  love. 


INDEX 

OF  PASSAGES  RELATING  TO  THE  POEMS 

The  principal  references  are  indicated 
by  the  rise  of  larger  figures 

Abt  Vogler,  21,  55,  119,  141. 149-153,  271. 

Adam,  Lilith  and  Eve,  355. 

After,  266. 

Alkestis,  368,  369,  372-382. 

Andrea  del  Sarto,  21,  141,  155-159,  310-313. 

Any  Wife  to  any  Husband,  352. 

Aristophanes'  Apology,  20,  73,  371,  382-388,  415. 

Asolando,  3,  109-111,  115,  245,  439. 

Balaustion's  Adventure,  372,  415. 

Balaustion's  Prologue,  20. 

Bean-stripe  :  also  Apple  Eating,  A,  71. 

Before,  266. 

Bello  and  Pomegranates,  4,  9,  26. 

Bifurcation,  256,  427. 

Bishop  Blougram's  Apology,  21,  394,  397,  417. 

Bishop  orders  his  Tomb  at  St.  Praxed's  Church,  The,  20,  282,  283, 

302,  Z\Z,  321. 
Blot  in  the  'Scutcheon,  A,  4,  338. 
By  the  Fireside,  63,  69,  79,  243,  245,  249,  349-350- 

Caliban  upon  Setebos,  21,  83,  284. 
Cavalier  Tunes,  28. 
Cenciaja,  427. 
Charles  Avison,  435,  436. 
Cherries,  435. 

Childe  Ronald,  65,  87,  271,  274-276. 
Christmas  Eve,  75. 

Christmas  Eve  and  Easter  Day,  21,  214. 

443 


444  INDEX 

Cleon,  20,  284,  290-295. 

Colombe's  Birthday,  339. 

Confessions,  259. 

Count  Gismond,  261. 

Cristina,  255. 

Cristina  and  Monaldeschi,  270. 

Daniel  Bartoli,  436. 

Death  in  the  Desert,  A,  21,  30,  283,  296. 

De  Gustibus,  26. 

Dis  Aliter  Visum,  256,  349. 

Donald,  433. 

Dramas,  The  — 

Strafford,  226. 

King  Victor  and  King  Charles,  229,  230. 

The  Return  of  the  Druses,  230,  231. 

The  Blot  in  the  'Scutcheon,  231,  234. 

Colombe's  Birthday,  235,  236. 

Luria,  236,  237. 

A  Soul's  Tragedy,  238,  239. 

Pippa  Passes,  240. 
Dramatic  Idyls,  109,  436. 
Dramatic  Lyrics,  433. 
Dramatis  Personse,  5. 

Easter  Day,  141,  145-148. 

Echetlos,  431. 

Englishman  in  Italy,  The,  27,  66,  82. 

Epilogue,  427,  437. 

Epistle  of  Karshish,  An,  285,  296-300,  428. 

Evelyn  Hope,  255,  357. 

Fears  and  Scruples,  427, 

Ferishtah's  Fancies,  109,  248,  434,  439. 

Fifine  at  the  Fair,  60,  106,  107,  240,  333,  417,  419,  422-425. 

Filippo  Baldinucci,  34,  425. 

Flight  of  the  Duchess,  The,  78,  271,  276-279,  357. 

Flower's  Name,  The,  258. 

Forgiveness,  A,  266,  427. 

Era  Lippo  Lippi,  21,  282,  283,  285,  304-310. 

Francis  Furini,  30,  435. 


INDEX 

Gerard  de  Lairesse,  87,  435. 

Glove,  The,  262. 

Gold  Hair,  356. 

Grammarian's  Funeral,  A,  20,  78,  120,  141,  153-155,  319-321, 

Halbert  and  Hob,  433. 

Half- Rome,  396,  400. 

Herve  Riel,  28,  415. 

Holy  Cross  Day,  34. 

Home  Thoughts  from  Abroad,  10. 

How  it  strikes  a  Contemporary,  315. 

How  they  Brought  the  Good  News  from  Ghent  to  Aix,  28. 

IcciON,  434. 

In  a  Balcony,  254,  340-343. 

In  a  Gondola,  257. 

In  a  Laboratory,  356. 

Inn  Album,  The,  107,  108,  332,  395,  417,  419,  427. 

Instans  Tyrannus,  265. 

In  Three  Days,  253. 

Italian  in  England,  322,  357. 

James  Lee's  Wife,  60,  79,  81,  256,  351. 
Jochanan  Hakkadosh,  34,  434. 
Jocoseria,  109,  433,  434. 
Johannes  Agricola  in  Meditation,  317-319. 

King  Victor  and  King  Charles,  336. 

Laboratory,  The,  10,  20,  265. 
La  Saisiaz,  59,  109,  427. 
Last  Ride  Together,  The,  245. 
Light  Woman,  A,  355. 
Lost  Mistress,  The,  256. 
Love  among  the  Ruins,  252. 
Lovers'  Quarrel,  A,  69,  257. 
Lunia,  343. 

Meeting  at  Night  —  Parting  at  Morning,  258. 

Men  and  Women,  5. 

My  Last  Duchess,  4,  10,  317. 


445 


446  INDEX 

Natural  Magic,  427. 

Natural    Theology    on    the    Island ;     or,    Caliban    upon    Setebos, 

286-290. 
Ned  Bralto,  427. 
Never  the  Time  and  Place,  434. 
Now,  246. 
Numpholeptos,  425. 

Old  Pictures  in  Florence,  141,  159-161. 
One  Word  More,  250. 
Other  Half-Rome,  397. 

Pacchiarotto,  108,  425,  426. 

Pan  and  Luna,  431. 

Paracelsus,  3,  4,  8,  9,  14,  26,  55,  62,  67,  79,  84,  96-100,  115,  127- 

140,  190,  202,  244,  271,  272,  348,  428. 
Parleyings  with  Certain  People,  434,  435,  439. 
Pauline,  15,  21,  79,  87,  90-96,  104,  115, 120-127,  190,  244,  323-325. 
Pearl  —  A  girl,  A,  246. 
Pheidippides,  431. 
Pictor  Ignotus,  313-315. 
Pied  Piper  of  Hamelin,  The,  4. 
Pillar  at  Selzevar,  A,  435. 
Pippa  Passes,  4,  9,  30,  77,  80,  164-167,  268,  272-274,  320-322, 

334-335- 
Pisgah  Sights,  427. 

Pompilia,  359-364. 

Porphyria's  Lover,  10,  326. 

Pretty  Woman,  A,  355. 

Prince  Hohenstiel  Schwangan,  107,  395,  417,  419,  426. 

Prospice,  250-251. 

Rabbi  Ben  Ezra,  34,  148. 

Red  Cotton  Night-Cap  Country,  107,  332,  395,  417,  419,  426. 

Return  of  the  Druses,  337. 

Ring  and  the  Book,  The,  6,  20,  105-106,  264,  348,  391,  398-399. 

Saul,  4,  85. 

Serenade  at  the  Villa,  A,  260. 
Sludge,  the  Medium,  Mr.,  394,  397. 
Soliloquy  of  the  Spanish  Cloister,  266. 


INDEX  447 

Solomon  and  Balkis,  355. 

Sordello,  4,  8,  9,  II,  20,  26,  44,  70,  87,  101-104,  167-176,  177-199, 

201,  208,  282,  327-329,  III,  348. 
Soul's  Tragedy,  A,  343. 
Spanish  Cloister,  The,  20. 
Speculative,  246. 
St.  Martin's  Summer,  260,  427. 
Strafford,  4,  26,  326. 
Summum  Bonum,  246. 

Tertium  Quid,  391,  397. 
Theology  in  the  Island,  283. 
Time's  Revenges,  355. 
Toccata  of  Galuppi's,  A,  21,  321. 
Too  Late,  256,  355. 
Transcendentalism,  144. 
Two  in  the  Campagna,  254. 
Two  Poets  of  Croisic,  427. 

Up  at  a  Villa  —  Down  in  the  City,  '^t^,  322. 

Waring,  4. 

Worst  of  it.  The,  355. 

Youth  and  Art,  256. 


14  DAY  USE 

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